Nightly Ramble Thursday

Welcome, one and all tot he most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… the BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• IF YOU EVER WANTED PROOF OF THE CONTEMPT DEMOCRATS HOLD THE VOTERS IN: Here you go…. Nancy Pelosi explaining Obamacare:
  

  It’s like the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest. All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on.

  Think about it. Either we can consider this to be proof of the contempt Democrats hold for the American voter, or we can accept it as proof that the rank and file Democrat voter, who put such slime in office in the first place, is stupid enough to require constant supervision,and someone to make their choices for them.  Which, of course, Queen Nancy is quite willing to provide .  Such a spirit of public service, this. That’s the kind of contempt that Obamacare is based on, dear reader.

• JOHN EDWARDS, TIGER WOODS AND NOW THE BOSS? Well, actually STILL Springsteen. Where do you think the album “Tunnel of Love” came from anyway? Of course, nobody cared then, either, then too, by now everybody’s used to it from this guy.
• EATING HEALTHY? Ummm NO, NOT REALLY: When’s the last time you saw a healthy Vegan? Comedian Ron White  has a classic bit in which she describes the reaction of a friend of his out in the L.A. basin …. his friend commented that he was feeling somewhat nauseous, and was thinking the cause was that the vegetable soup he just had for lunch had beef broth in it.  Says White: “Your system’s kicking back… BROTH?” Essentially, White correctly explains, your body builds up and intolerance for what it needs.  They look like death on sticks, most of them. Jim Henson was a prime example.  Yet there’s never any end to vegetarian groups telling us about how much healthier the  vegan lifestyle is. We, as it happens this shows up in my mailbox today:
  

  An analysis of dietary data from more than 400,000 men and women found only a weak association between high fruit and vegetable intake and reduced overall cancer risk, according to a study published online April 6, 2010 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

  It was already game over, guys but this is yet more proof that such people are deluded.

• JOBLESS CLAIMS UP MORE THAN WHITE HOUSE EXPECTED. Well, more than they wanted to admit, anyway. Given the scope of downward adjustments to each of these reports  following the big announcements with rosy numbers, month over month, I’m forced to conclude that there is no reason to believe the numbers that they’re coming up with even after the corrections.  Why would they falsify numbers? Gee, I wonder.

In the February 16^th, 2010 Wall Street Journal, Gerald F. Seib wrote an article called Senate Woes Flag Wider Disease.  The premise of the article is that the center of the political continuum has been eroded and that the bridge historically connecting the left and the right is being dismantled.  He goes on to indicate that the result is a Senate without an ability to accomplish anything.  The Framers, along with many who have followed, have long-since understood the power of the majority in a democracy.  Accordingly, they have inserted safeguards against the potential “tyranny of the majority” that are now coming into clear view.  Mr. Seib also points to the rapidly expanding use, over the last twenty years, of filibusters and cloture votes used to end those filibusters.  In the end, the article concludes, “The broader political system, more than the filibuster, is the problem.”

The notion of the “broader political system” is an interesting focal point for the current situation.  And while I am not certain what Mr. Seib intended by his use of the words, I am certain that the problem we have is much greater than a purely political problem.  To cast blame on the system is to address a second-order cause, as opposed to any level of fundamental or first-order cause.  The issues we face today are simply a proxy for the broader existential and self-identification issues we face as a nation.  We face an array of ontological problems that have been emerging over several decades, but are now, for the first time, exhibited for everyone to see.  The fundamental issue we face today is one of determining whether we as a nation are going to be governed by the use of power, or whether we will continue to be governed via “authority.” The distinction is becoming essentially clearer with every passing day.  And the distinction could not be more significant.

Our nation was built on the premise of governance by authority.  The American Constitution was a radical condemnation of the power-based systems of governance that have plagued the history of the world. Authority is acquired as a direct result of agreement as to our shared values, and is willfully granted by those who are subservient.  It is government by consent.  As human beings, we earnestly seek the security of those who will lead by means of earned authority.  A world without authority is a world of nihilistic chaos.  The safe-harbors that are the domain of authority represent our only sense of true earthly freedom.   Power, on the other hand, is the evil twin of authority.  Power is the ruling philosophy of Machiavelli and Nietzsche which views control as a single dimensioned approach to governance which is to be seized, not earned.   The descendents of these progenitors of modern power-based liberalism are represented exceptionally well by the current president and his entire administration. The majority leaders in the House and Senate are cut from the very same clothe.  That type of power-based leadership represents the core of the current deeply felt disaffections, pushed to the point of demonstrated hatred, in our nation today.

While the current slate of political issues are being thrashed, dissected and “spun,” our collective visceral reaction is that of a nation forced to look squarely in the face of becoming the slaves of an all-encompassing power-based system of governmental control.  We have not seen this in our lifetimes.   It is becoming apparent that there are those in power in Washington who would feel they have both the right and the responsibility to control every facet of our lives and then mortgage our future just to make certain that our slave-status is made permanent.   They see it as their actual duty to manage the lives and values of their subjects. And they are not interested in alternative notions of the good.  This is pure power politics and it is repulsive to almost all of us.  We are learning, as those before us, just how truly ugly power is.

“Didn’t the old system of distributed and agreed-upon and values-based authority work pretty well?  How was it that we asked for this?”   We did not seem to know what was on the political menu in the elections of 2008.  We voted for change and we got the rule of the jungle.  The political issues are now secondary.  Impending slavery is primary.  Let’s hope we have learned our lesson this next time around.

Obama ponders destruction of the State of Israel, David Ignatius, RCP:

WASHINGTON — President Obama is “seriously considering” proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to two top administration officials.

“Everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal,” said one of the senior officials, citing the agreement that was nearly reached at Camp David in 2000 and in subsequent negotiations. He said that an American plan, if launched, would build upon past progress on such issues as borders, the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The second senior official said that “90 percent of the map would look the same” as what has been agreed in previous bargaining.

The Palis will not accept any peace settlement with out the so-called right of return.   No sane Israeli can can accept the the proposition, as it would mean the destruction of the State of Israel.

More, Carl in Jerusalem, Israel Matzav

‘Everyone knows’ but everyone doesn’t know. The ‘Palestinians’ turned down the far-too-generous offer made by Ehud Barak at Camp David. They turned down even more generous offers made by Barak at Taba in January 2001 and by Ehud Olmert in late 2008. Does this mean that Obama is going to offer them even more than what was offered in the past? What is left to be offered other than a ‘right of return’ to all the ‘refugees’ that would vitiate the existence of a Jewish state? Does building upon ‘past progress’ mean that Israel will be pushed for further concessions?

NY Slimes lauds the Death Panels, David Leonhardt:

The federal government is now starting to build the institutions that will try to reduce the soaring growth of health care costs. There will be a group to compare the effectiveness of different treatments, a so-called Medicare innovation center and a Medicare oversight board that can set payment rates.

That is death panels for you, but not for the slime bags who wrote Obama Care.   The turds who gleefully impose this mess on the the public, exempt themselves from the law.

Urban terrorism in Baghdad by the Bay, Michelle:

In San Francisco, the housing entitlement mob is led by an anarchist-Marxist-inspired “social justice” group called “Homes Not Jails” that grew out of the Food Not Bombs/San Francisco Tenants Union alliance.

On Easter Sunday, the property rights-trampling mobsters of “Homes Not Jails” besieged a privately-owned duplex building while police officers stood around watching them illegally trespass. And San Francisco wonders why it’s a dying city

Vigilant justice arises from the absence of a judicial justice system.   Violence will be countered by one means or another.

Ring around the bitch, Arianna Huffington starts a fight on Morning Joe, and loses said fight, video:

Hat tip: Nice Deb.

I’d hesitate to call it a slug fest.  Huffington got one shot it, Kerik,  and was pretty much parried.

No Sex for Duke Blue Devils, Joanne Jacobs:

The Duke Blue Devils had better remain chaste. As national champions, they are unable to have consensual sex with other students under Duke’s new “sexual misconduct” policy, warns the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). A person seen as “powerful” — such as a varsity athlete — may “create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion,” the policy states. For the “powerful,” it’s not just that “no” means no and silence means no. “Yes” means no too

Now you know why they are known as the Blue Devils.   If  you are a student athlete playing room, board and tuition, you in position of power.  Whereas if you are the President of the United States, you just keeping abortoin,  “safe, legal and rare.”   Or so I am told.

No brains for Ms O’Donnell.   Rosie O’Donnell proves that she knows almost as much about the Catholic church as she knows about structural steel, from Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit:

[O’Donnell] I’m saying that to support an organization where at the top of the infrastructure, are people willing to ignore the mass child abuse and torture and sexual molestation of its own constituents.

It’s almost like when you read about cults, Jonestown, all these cults [that] allow sexual perversity and sexual behavior.

As percentage of the population, there are more pedophiles in the White House than in the Catholic church.

Ramble Back, Eric rambled:

April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, and the liberal race-baiting going on in response:

The governor of Virginia called her citizens to serve their state.  They answered the call and at least six  thousand Virginians died in service of their state.   It is only fitting that the office which called these men into service honor their service.   It is called being civilized.

Welcome, one and all tot he most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… the BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• WHICH IS MORE STUPID? I mentioned yesterday the change in Nuclear Defense Policy. Today, Obama compounds the problem. Fox News:
  

  WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s advisers will remove religious terms such as “Islamic extremism” from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.

  The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”

  So, you tell me… which is more stupid?

• THE  FALSE CHARGE OF RACISM AND THE TRUTH: Roger Simon answers the charge of racism tossed at the Tea Party:
  

  

  Pajamas Media's Roger Simon

  The continued nostalgia for racism on the part of the Democratic Party never ceases to amaze me. Last week, when Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) allowed as how the Tea Party Movement was similar to the KKK, my eyes rolled so far back in my head I almost had to clone a new cranium. Jewish boy to Jewish boy, Steve, that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard one of our co-religionists say in public. If anything, the Tea Partyers are the antithesis of racist – a collection of wild, freedom-loving quasi-libertarians who could care less about anyone’s color or background, far less than a former Ivy League snob like me. (PERSONAL NOTE: I was a civil rights worker in the South during the Sixties and would stay miles, I hope, from any movement that smacked of racism.)Nevertheless, self-described liberals, progressives and what-not persist in telling us the Tea Party Movement is racist, despite the fact they have yet to produce an iota of concrete evidence to prove this absurd point.

  Dan Riehl, today looks at the news April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, and the liberal race-baiting going on in response:

  ..

  

  Dan Riehl

  .Judging from some of the reactions around the progressive blogosphere, I guess one is only allowed to invoke the Civil War as a tourism driver if you were on the Union side.

  Via the WaPo and here’s the proclamation. Sad, but if the usual race baiting Democrats and aligned groups don’t keep beating the slavery meme, maybe they fear blacks will up and leave the progressive Democrat plantation one day.

  They don’t really mind blacks in chains, so long as they don’t keep them from the voting booth. Progressivism is the real face of slavery in America today. But it’s not really racist, it seeks to enslave everyone, not just blacks.

  I quote the whole thing because frankly it’s worth repeating. Dan’s got this one spot on, for both stories. The pattern of liberals playing the race card when they get themselves into trouble is unquestionable.

Obami play with political poison, Thomas Sowell, RCP:

Few combinations are more poisonous than race and politics. That combination has torn whole nations apart and led to the slaughters of millions in countries around the world.

You might think we would have learned a lesson from that and stay away from injecting race into political issues. Yet playing the race card has become an increasingly common response to growing public anger at the policies of the Obama administration and the way those policies have been imposed

I lack faith in both Obama’s wisdon and judgement as well as the motivation of the Obami.   Obama has spent a lilfetime hanging out with people like Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger who do not have the nation’s best interest at heart.

Obama’s filibuster, Debra Saunders RCP:

The president’s remarks at a North Carolina lithium battery plant last Friday were so tedious as to garner attention of, among others, the Washington Post’s Anne E. Kornblut. In answer to a question from Doris of Lake Wylie, S.C., Kornblut wrote that Obama gave a 17-minute response that lulled “the crowd into a daze” as “his discursive answer — more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic.”

The worst part: Obama didn’t answer the question. He didn’t even come close.

It has been said that if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.    Sadly for Dumbo, while bullshit is not required to be accurate, it at least has to be interesting.

Mississippi lezzie upset to learn she and her girl friend not welcome at private prom, Advocate:

[Constance] McMillen tells The Advocate that a parent-organized prom happened behind her back — she and her date were sent to a Friday night event at a country club in Fulton, Miss., that attracted only five other students. Her school principal and teachers served as chaperones, but clearly there wasn’t much to keep an eye on.

“They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them,” McMillen says.  “The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to.”

Free Americans still have the right of free association.  McMillen wass upset that she was not allowed to exercise her choice.   Yet she was also upset the the parents exercised their choice.  It seems to be a constitutional right of which McMillen was not even aware, much less respected.   McMillen may be entitled to a court order to allow her and her girl friend to attend the official school prom.  However respect can only be freely given and can not demanded by court order.

More, DRJ, Patterico’s Pontifications:

If there were other parties (and there probably were), I’m not sure what the legal basis would be for a complaint if the parties are private, by invitation only, and weren’t school-sponsored. The court might be able to force the school district to host a prom but how can it force students to attend? A prom mandate?

I suppose after court ordered mandated attendance, the judge could also order force administration of happy pills.

Brain Top Free protest, Kate Torgovnick, Frisky:

In Portland, Maine, it is legal for women to go topless in public. And thus Ty MacDowell put up a post on Facebook asking ladies to join her for a topless walk down Congress Street over the weekend, to advance the idea that women should be able to exercise the right whenever they like. A few dozen showed up, and they began meandering down the block, sans shirts. But then, something insane happened. People—many of them men (gasp!)—stopped and stared. “I’m amazed and enraged at the fact that there’s a wall of men watching,” said MacDowell. “A lot of people were taking pictures without even asking. Even if you’re somewhere where people are fully clothed, you should ask

MacDowell(20) seems to be the only person shocked to learn that men are pigs.   If the chicks want to bare their boobs, I reserve the right to ogle them.    What eludes MacDowell is that men and women react to nudity different because men and women are wired different.  Didn’t MacDowell’s mother teach her anything?    Hugh Hefner built his Chicago Playboy mansion off of pictures of female breasts.   Whereas the Playgirl mansion is an out building in Topeka.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Dumb idea of the day. BBC:

The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said.

Place names, people’s names and company names or brands will now count

The key to a civilized game of Scrabble is to agree on the dictionary to use, prior to the start of the game.

Today we introduce our newest writer at The Conservative Reader, Brian Nygaard.  Brian and his wife Mary live in San Rafael, California. – Ed.

As the Healthcare debate in Congress was drawing to a close, Americans were asking themselves “Why can’t we seem to make any progress on the healthcare issue?”  We watch in disbelieving awe as we observe nothing getting done over seemingly very long periods of time.  We covet answers, but our perception is that what we are receiving from Washington is just gridlock and petty partisan politics.  We cannot even agree on such a simple notion as the need for the portability of individual insurance coverage.  Amazing, isn’t it?  It looks like a mess, and it is.  But it is a mess for reasons completely separated from the issue of healthcare.  The problem with the healthcare issue is that the issue has never been about healthcare, or insurance companies, or patient’s rights, or universal coverage.

Over the course of our American history, a small number of windows of opportunity have presented themselves to the radical leftists amongst us.  Andrew Jackson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama have occupied the White House at these seldom-recurring junctures.  They were times of fear, and unfortunately, fear creates an uneasy interest in flight.  When we are afraid, the fear-emotion overwhelms us and we look for a solution to relieve our pain: any solution.  Desperation takes over, and we respond.  And it is in those periods of desperation (and exasperation) that the radical left can seek to gain a further foothold.  The leftists understand better than anyone the ratchet-effect that is the creation of a new “government trough.”  Once the trough is created and filled, it is very hard for a democracy to remove the trough.  They, the elitist liberals, recognize that supplicants are rendered slaves, and that is clearly what they desire…a larger group of slaves.

Whether we are talking about healthcare, or school vouchers, or corporate taxation, the issue is never “the issue.”  The issue is always about “who controls what.”  And the liberals don’t care what it is they are controlling.  They view their strategy consistent with that of the famous labor leader, Samuel Gompers, who summarized the role of unions as “more.” Just more control by Washington.  This is a statement of quantification with no interest in the qualitative aspects of the issue.  The qualitative is simply not applicable to their view of what it is we are attempting to accomplish.  Herein lies the great disconnect.  When it appears that the Democrats are talking in nonsensical terms, that would be true, but only if the discussion were viewed in a normal qualitative light.  And that is what almost all of us do without even thinking about it.  On the other hand, when viewed through the lens of “more” their comments make complete sense – at least to themselves.  If the means towards the goal of “more” requires fabrication of the truth, then so be it.  We wonder out loud how they cannot see why people are so mad at them for their willingness to stoop to any level of disingenuous behavior to meet their ends.  But through their own eyes, they can see it no differently.  They are blinded by the power of “more.”  When we leave out factors relating to quality and think only in terms of quantity, we fall into the same old utilitarian and non-human trap that has existed since Cain killed Abel.  That was a quality issue then too.

The good news about the simplicity of “more” is that it makes no sense to any of us.  The power of the intellectual elite to misunderstand the abilities of common sense is now once again very evident.   As they are “uncommon” by self-proclamation, they have become “neurobehaviorally challenged.”   Who they are comes to trump any actual thought that would be of value in answering any of the critical questions.

So now I must correct an earlier error.  The healthcare issue is really about healthcare.  It is about the mental health, or lack thereof, of the political left.  The disease is called “morism.”  The symptoms are first prevarication, then obfuscation, then insanity (the current phase), and then death.  I guess the solution to our healthcare issues are truly a healthcare issue after all.

This is the audio of my fourth “Ask the Expert” interview with Brian Thomas on 55KRC.  The interview aired live 03/23/2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFBIKM3vi9g

Welcome, one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web ; The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

• COAL-MINE: We’ve all seen the news coming out of  the area around Montcoal, West Virginia.  As of this writing something like 25 dead and  4 more missing.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those affected.   The mainstream media, CNN in particular, seem to take great pride in pointing out that the mine involved has had something on the order of a million dollars worth of fines over 483 safety violations.  What CNN will not tell you how ever is something that Fox has up on their website:
  

  A federal audit released just days before a massive explosion killed 25 coal miners in West Virginia found that the country’s top mine safety agency was not adequately retraining its veteran inspectors, even as hundreds of new inspectors were being hired.

  The audit, released on March 30, found that 56 percent of veteran Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors had not completed required retraining between 2006 and 2007. A few hadn’t attended any training sessions since the policy was enacted a decade earlier, and even entry-level hires “lacked supporting documentation” to show they went through the required 21-23 weeks of instruction.

  The report found there were “no consequences” for not attending retraining, and said that training gap “increases the possibility that hazardous conditions may not be identified and corrected during inspections which, in turn, could increase the risk of accidents, injuries, fatalities.”
  I think the quickest rental Asian here is that government fell down on the job.  And those in the news media also fell down on their job, when they went out of their way to pin the failure on the mine owner, and not the government which assumed , of its own power, the right to penalize the mine owner for not keeping the workers safe. Here’s another situation where the government usurped a power, and then fail to live up to the responsibility a tendency to such power.  But the mainstream news media, we’ll never tell you this when the democrats are in power.  Cheers from here to Fox, who had the testicular mass to point out who it was who failed those families in West Virginia.

• NUCLEAR DEFEATISM: Apparently “Hope and Change” means America surrenders.  I’ve seen the document in question, and the primary goal, it states itself is to reduce the use of nuclear weapons. Forgive me, but isn’t the goal of ANY defense policy to protect and defend our country?  This document, a long with a forthcoming antinuclear summit being held by Mr. Obama next week, or all clearly for domestic consumption, amongst the base of Mr. Obama’s party.  The trouble is, the policy has stated is nothing less than incredibly stupid.  There is a level at which naiveté become stupidity, and the Obama administration has outdone itself with this one. Among the many common shares that you should read, is John at Powerline:
  

  President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons. … To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary. …

  For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

  On its face, that is unbelievably stupid.  A country attacks us with biological weapons, and we stay our hand because they are “in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty”?  That is too dumb even for Barack Obama.  The administration hedged its commitment with qualifications suggesting that if there actually were a successful biological or chemical attack, it would rethink its position.  The Times puts its finger on what is wrong with the administration’s announcement:

  It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war.

  That’s exactly right.  The cardinal rule, when it comes to nuclear weapons, is keep ’em guessing.  We want our enemies to believe that we may well be crazy enough to vaporize them, given sufficient provocation; one just can’t tell.  There is a reason why that ambiguity has been the American government’s policy for more than 50 years.  Obama cheerfully tosses overboard the strategic consensus of two generations.

  Or pretends to, anyway.  Does anyone doubt that the administration would use nukes in a heartbeat if it considered such measures necessary?  I don’t.

  I don’t, either, frankly.  But that answer makes the perhaps unwarranted assumption that such weapons are actually available, and that Mr. Obama choice making ability has not been handcuffed limited by the policy imposed by his own naiveté. To my mind that remains an open question.  That’s particularly so, given the amount of insults that Mr. Obama and his minions have been tossing around amongst our strongest Allies , recently.  Most of home, I note, also have nuclear capability.  I’ll leave that one sit in your craw for a while. Others commenting: The Corner, Little Green Footballs, Hot Air, Political Punch, Jihad Watch, Dan Drezner, BLACKFIVE, Q & O, Pajamas Media, Ben Smith’s Blog,Another Black Conservative, Taylor Marsh,  Don Surber,  JammieWearingFool, Riehl World View, The Anchoress and The Lonely Conservative

• ASTROTURFING: James Joyner today makes mention of Kevin Drum who in his turn is trumpeting the virtues of the” Coffee Party”.  According to Drum, and I assume his source, they’re trying to attract what is being called “coffee conservatives” … which is apparently defined as someone who  “remains interested in actual policy and doesn’t feel the urge to rant tirelessly about decline of the west and the imminent tyranny that Barack Obama is bringing down on us.” I tell James:
  

  One of the habits the left has been perfecting over the last couple of decades is making out that the Lynch mob that is chasing them, is actually a parade they’re leading. Witness, as an example, Bubba and welfare reform. They get out in front of the angry mob and make out like it was their idea in the first place.

  This is simply more of the same. It’s an attempt to muddy the water. An interesting simile given coffee or tea.

  One other point ….and it’s one I’ve raised before from the road a few weeks ago… is that Drum talking up the group is indication enough of their true leanings, but it gets better. Has anybody bothered investigating the fact that the leader of this organization, and its founder, is Anabele Park, a lifelong Democrat who worked for the Obama Campaign?

  Sorry, I know Astroturf when I see it.   This is not about silencing the current members of the tea party, this is about keeping you from seeing what’s really going on out there in raising your own voice in Unison with them.  It’s called controlling the narrative.  That’s all the “fairness doctrine” was ever about, that’s all that “net neutrality” was ever about, and so on.  Controlling the narrative.  Next case, please.

• SOCIALISM: Billy Says….
  

  the complete text of Ludwig von Mises’ “Socialism” is available online here.  If you don’t have a hardcopy handy, I urge you to go get this crucial work and get with it.

  What he said.   It’s something I’ve been meaning to attend to myself.  My immediate regret is that it is not in raw text so I can toss it into the Palm Reader. I suppose that I can read it online, if I strip most of the CSS out… but that’s such a pain on the Palm, and a battery killer as well.

• WHITE HOUSE DERANGEMENT: Roger Simon will explain it. Roger, you really have to stop acting like you’re surprised over this stuff.  It’s probably safer to assume that there is nothing but good about this White House occupant, and go from there.  Unless that is you want to agree with Joe Biden and suggest that he’s extraordinarily clean and well spoken, for a black man.  (Sheesh, what an idiot)
• THE TERRORISM OUR GOVERNMENT WON’T ATTEND TO: I made mention of this kind of thing yesterday.   David did so as well.  I must admit to being surprised this moron was actually sentenced to anything at all.  so, I suppose I should be thankful.  But five years? Not nearly enough time. Not even close. And time isn’t the only issue, either.  Personally I figure he should come out of that jail minus gonads so there’s no chance he’ll pollute the gene pool.  That to me is the most urgent environmental protection issue in this story.
• UNSUSTAINABLE: Megan McArdle says today:
  

  If the feds bail out these states, they’re assuming an ongoing obligation-and encouraging other states to let their fiscal problems get as big as possible, so Uncle Sugar will have to pay off. Leaving aside any ideological questions about robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the proper size of government, the federal government simply cannot afford to take on all these new obligations-and if it did, its ability to borrow money would rapidly become unsustainable.  Sure, there’s nothing wrong with giving states temporary assistance to keep the recession from hitting too hard-but we’re approaching the point where that’s not really what we’re talking about.  We’re talking about letting states make big promises without bothering to find sustainable sources of revenue with which to pay for them.  That’s not something the federal government can afford to encourage.

  For all the leftist rant and rave about unsustainable impact on the environment, you would think they would have at least a small understanding of what is unsustainable in economics. that seems to me to be Megan’s argument.  And, she’s right, as far as she goes.  The trouble is, this ignores Cloward-Piven, which the Obama administration has been faithfully following, and which suggested that the objective of pulling down this country and removing its free enterprise routes, could be best accomplished by swapping it with obligations that it couldn’t possibly pay.  Megan, you’re wonderful… and I mean that.  but you’re going to have to start understanding , and in short order, that there is far more than economics at work here.  Something far more dangerous at work.

El Rushmo smacks Dumbo. You knew it was coming.  Rush Limbaugh knocks the legs out from under Barack Obama.

As does Ben Stein, American Spectator:

There are words for national leaders who attempt to appease their enemies while at the same time shaming and humiliating their friends. One of the kindest of the words is “naive.”

This comes to mind because of President Obama’s recent overtures to the terrorist state of Iran, while shaming Israel

Sure naive is an apt enough word to decribe Dumbo,  but stupid is an even better one.

Michael Steele plays the race card, Huma Khan et al, ABC News:

Embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he won’t resign despite calls for him to step down amid reports of the group’s excessive spending, adding that he and other African-American leaders such as President Obama have a slimmer margin of error because of their race.

And plays it poorly.  Dumbo’, b/k/a Barack Obama, major problems include that he neither honest, nor competent.    In fact Dumbo g0t elected because enough voters turned a blind eye to thin resume and attempted ease their racial guilt by voting for clean, articulate black.   In fact, Dumbo ever increasing pool of supporters, is still hiding behind his race.

However playing the race card will not salvage Dumbo’s presidency and it will not save Steele.

Does Dumbo even care if Iran goes nuclear? From Wall Street Journal

‘Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite.” Thus did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seek to reassure the crowd at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee two weeks ago about the Obama Administration’s resolve on Iran. Three days later, this newspaper reported on its front page that “the U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran” in order to win Russian and Chinese support for one more U.N. sanctions resolution.

This fits the pattern we have seen across the 14 months of the Obama Presidency. Mrs. Clinton called a nuclear-armed Iran “unacceptable” no fewer than four times in a single paragraph in her AIPAC speech. But why should the Iranians believe her? President Obama set a number of deadlines last year for a negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear file, all of which Tehran ignored, and then Mr. Obama ignored them too.

Sure a nuclear Iran is grave threat to the State of Israel.   However Obama is neither Jewish or pro-democracy.

Bring it on punk.  Greenpeace retard threatens me, video:

Hat tip: Kate McMillian, Small Dead Animals

It will not be a fair fight.  Greenpeace will have to walk to the battle.

Ipad comes up short, Ker Than and Robert Roy Britt, Live Science:

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… the BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• FIRST, THIS SNARK:  From Reynolds:
  

  POLL: Tea Party 48, Obama 44.

  Best headline: Tea Party More Popular Than Obama, Frank Rich Hardest Hit.

• THE TEA PARTY LOOKS LIKE AMERICA: So where does that polling leave us?  James Joyner notes this morning;
  

  According to two new surveys, the Tea Party movement is supported by 28% of Americans, half of its members are non-Republicans, and, aside from skewing slightly white and male, remarkably similar to the country as a whole demographically.

  I tell him:

  I find it interesting that the diversity in the Tea Party movement… both ethnically and politically… is one point that the major news media has not been covering. As a matter of fact, I keep hearing from people who have been attending tea parties that the news media when they show up seem to be going well out of their way to avoid taking pictures of any minorities who show up in support of the Tea Party. Ggee, I can’t imagine why that would be, can you?

  That said, in your observations seem to me fairly well spot on ; The tea party looks like America.

  You know, they told me if we elected Obama he would unite America. Looks like they were right. America is united against him.

  Ain’t it real….

• A UNITER? Hewitt suggests the reason they’re so united against Obama:
  

  The president’s popularity is plummeting — down to a 44 percent approval rating in the most recent, post-Obamacare CBS poll — and his rhetoric is getting angrier as he tours the country demanding that critics of Obamacare shut up.

  His predecessor, George W. Bush, was blasted by the media when he used “Bring it on” against our nation’s enemies.

  President Obama’s jeering “Let them try” challenge was followed by a sneering attempt at stand-up in Portland, Maine, on Friday when he compared critics of the new health care regime to fools wondering why seeds don’t sprout immediately upon planting.

  Americans love a good winner, but when the winner is a whiner, the public’s reaction is not going to be admiration.

  The president ran in 2008 as a post-partisan “uniter” who would usher in an era of bipartisan reform, but he has chosen to become a polarizing figure and a Chicago jam-down artist for whom trash talk is as much a part of his daily game. Rarely has the promise been so far removed from the result.

  I dunno, Hugh…  As I say, I have rarely seen America more united.  I will grant you that it wasn’t exactly the outcome Obama envisioned….

• TIM BURNS: John Hawkins over at Right Wing News has an interview with Tim Burns, who is running for the seat formerly infested by John Murtha. No, it’s not particularly early for this kind of an interview, at least in this case, because the race is actually happening next month.  One begins to wonder if the trend in previous special elections (for example, Kennedy’s former seat ) will continue.  I suspect it will, and thereby this interview is all the more important.
• THE LEFTIST DOUBLE STANDARD:  Let’s try a comparison. Let’s imagine we have a post on a Tea Party website saying:
  

  “The politicians have failed. Now it’s up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being … lobbyists. Screw being activists. It’s not working. We need an army of outlaws.”The proper channels have failed. It’s time for mass civil disobedience .

  If you’re one of those who believe that this is not just necessary but also possible, speak to us. Let’s talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.

  I mean, can you imagine the outcry?  Can you imagine this administrations reaction? Can you imagine the congressional outcry? Can you imagine the press?
  So, why does it get ignored when a leftist group coughs it up?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=9128&tag=nl.e539

Good article!

Jennifer Rubin on the Dim Won’s fading power of oratory, Commentary:

[Barack Obama’s] rhetoric (which to the amazement of many conservatives – who noticed he was largely talking New Age gibberish during the campaign – transfixed a great number of people for a very long time) is now seen for what it is — a smokescreen for bad ideas and an exercise in misdirection. Unfortunately for Obama, he may discover that once the president has lost the interest and trust of the voters, it’s hard to get these precious commodities back.

Amnesty International endorses Islamist jihad, Andy McCarthy, National Review.
Henry Waxman meet Friedrich Hayek, by Glenn Reynolds, Washington Examiner:

More like a confederacy of dunces. [Cngressman Henry] Waxman and his colleagues in Congress can’t possibly understand the health care market well enough to fix it.  But what’s more striking is that Waxman’s outraged reaction revealed that they don’t even understand their own area of responsibility – regulation — well enough to predict the effect of changes in legislation.

Chrissy Matthews, meet Chrissy Mathews. Chrissy is upset because the Great One, Rush Limbsugh refered to the Obama Regime as well a regime.   Yet poor Chrissy can’t seem to remember she referred to the Bush(43) administration as well a regime, from Byron York, Washington Examiner:

Finally — you knew this was coming — on June 14, 2002, Chris Matthews himself introduced a panel discussion about a letter signed by many prominent leftists condemning the Bush administration’s conduct of the war on terror. “Let’s go to the Reverend Al Sharpton,” Matthews said. “Reverend Sharpton, what do you make of this letter and this panoply of the left condemning the Bush regime?”

Oops. Perhaps Joe McCarthy never called the U.S. government a regime, but Chris Matthews did. And a lot of other people did, too. So now we are supposed to believe him when he expresses disgust at Rush Limbaugh doing the same?

This may explain why Limbaugh is a pundit.  Whereas, Matthews is but a news reader.

A tale of two pictures, The photo mash-up was done by the New York Slimes.   The top photo is of the Weathermen 1969.  The bottom the Tea Party, contemporary.  So questions:

• Which group resorted to violence?
• Which picture includes an unrepentant terrorist?
• Which group was sponsored by foreign government?
• Which group was motivated by fear of losing their student deferments?
• Which group was too young and stupid to know better?

Last which picture includes the person who both launched Barack Obama’s political career and ghost wrote his book?

Hat tip and more, Donald Douglas, Americana Power:

No doubt the editors included that “varying degrees” qualifier will get them off the hook. But there’s no escaping the truly bankrupt moral equivalence NYT’s claiming between a genuine domestic terrorist organization and a grassroots movement of conservatives, middle-class anti-tax activists, and an army of frustrated geriatrics. In contrast to a year’s worth of tea parties and town halls, the Moscow-backed Weatherman launched a series of bombings starting in 1969, totalling 25 attacks in all, as part of its war against “Amerikkka.” To this day, unrepentant terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are venerated as social justice messiahs while today’s citizen tea party activists wind up on DHS intelligence reports as “right wing extremists.”

Honesty is the best policy. Professor Ann Althouse spares no expense to establish her bona fides on the subject of radicals:

Is it a “hit piece” if the NYT parallels Tea Partiers and 60s radicals?

Gateway Pundit thinks it is and so does American Power, but they are righties. You have to look at this from a lefty perspective, and that’s something that I — with a long life experience among the lefties — can do. (I went to the University of Michigan as an undergrad in 1969 and had SDS people arguing on the other side of my dorm room wall, I lived in the West Village in the 1970s, I went to NYU School of Law circa 1980, and I have been with the law professors at the University of Wisconsin — in what is affectionately known as the People’s Republic of Madison — since 1984. I have had lovers quarrels with Communists.)

Honesty like that deserves a link.

I note Mark Steyn, this morning:

Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was in Canada last week. She criticized Ottawa for not inviting aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government’s “maternal health” initiative to developing countries. These might seem curious priorities for the global superpower at a time of war, but, with such a full plate over at the State Department, it’s no wonder that peripheral matters like Iranian nuclear deadlines seem to fall by the wayside.

…

The Obama administration came into office promising to press the “reset” button with the rest of the world after eight years of the so-called arrogant, swaggering Texan cowboy blundering his way around the planet offending peoples from many lands.  Instead, Obama pressed the ejector-seat button: Brits, Czechs, Israelis, Indians found themselves given the brush.

It’s clear to me, that what’s happening is that the Democrats currently infesting the White House are all about destroying the concept of American exceptionalism. Such destruction would certainly be required in the era of a one- world socialist government.  Certainly, this would be directly in line with (As Steyn points out) his statement in Berlin, that he is a “citizen of the world”.  I said at that time, that it was a clear signal that he is “reset” was going to amount to diminishing the role of the united states in the world .  As Steyn goes on to explain, though this is not a uniquely Obama-held goal.

The entire administration suffers, to put it at its mildest, from systemic indifference to American allies. It wasn’t Obama but a mere aide who sneered to Fleet Street reporters that Britain was merely one of 200 countries in the world and shouldn’t expect any better treatment than any of the others. It wasn’t Obama but the State Department that leaked Hillary Clinton’s dressing down of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Ally-belittling comes so reflexively to this administration that it’s now doing drive-by bird-flipping.

What we have here is a childish mindset… socialism…  being given the power of government.  I suggest that is  not unlike giving the keys to the Z28 to your 13 year old.  It’s a foregone conclusion that before the echo dies, that car is going to be seeing more air time than a snowboarder. The allusion to the thirteen year old I think is particularly apt, given the lack of maturity required for the leftist mindset.  It is clear that nobody and I mean nobody attached to this administration has any understanding whatsoever of the consequences attached to their actions, and their words. as with the thirteen year old and the car, the results are predictably devastating  to the causes America has stood for, freedom among them.

Either that, or they do.  No, I’m not double clutching this one. Understand me clearly…  The kinder reading on this is that like the thirteen year old, they have no real concept of the damage that can be inflicted by their actions.  My instinct is to believe at least superficially that they really don’t know what they’re doing.

But, there is one other possibility… a far more sinister one.   Maybe… maybe they do understand that they are being destructive to America and its ends.  You see, those seem to be the only two choices.  Either  those involved with this administration are inept to the point of criminality , or else they are intentionally destroying our standing in the world, and that is most certainly criminal.  There is no third option.

I will point out to you that during the last several Republican administrations , allusions have been made to “Cowboy Diplomacy”.  But, you know, I have met a number of cowboys, in my travels.  One personality feature that I find common to all of them is that they were extraordinarily friendly people.  Perhaps, not as polite as some in the formal sense, but down to earth friendly people, with a great deal of common sense.  I have to say that I don’t recall any Republican administration going so far out of their way to destroy our  relationships with long-term Allies.  But this administration has been doing it right along, and seems proud of it.

Isn’t it time we started asking why?

Filibuster breaks out at Obama rally, Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post:

Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” package.

“We are overtaxed as it is,” Doris said bluntly.

[…]

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer — more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Choice is only for democrats, Puffington Post:

Florida urologist Jack Cassell posted a sign on his office door reading, “If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your health care begin right now, not in four years.”

Cassell, a registered Republican, quickly backpedaled in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, but said he’s perfectly happy to lose business over the sign. “I’m not turning anybody away, that would be unethical,” he told the Sentinel. “But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.”

Points:

• And I thought liberals were pro-choice.
• Dr. Cassell is not refusing to treat the libtards.  He just rather not.

Digging into the Obami March employment numbers, Bruce McQuain, Questions and Observations:

There is a lot that has to change in the markets in general before you’re going to see any significant change in the labor market. So when you hear the talking heads this weekend tell you that it is all turning around and it will be sunshine and roses from now on, take it with a grain of salt.

Nice one Deb, bending the MSM narrative, Nice Deb:

Only Indicted Militia Member With Party Affiliation Is… a Democrat

As for myself,  I don’t care if Kris Sickles is a democrat, he still has the right to read the Bible a and own guns.    We are still a nation of citizens, and citizens have rights.

Pirates – 11, Navy – 0, Dana Hughes and Kirit Radia from ABC News:

A U.S. Navy ship has sunk a pirate “mother ship” in the Indian Ocean and captured 11 pirates, and then promptly let them go.

While those five pirates remain in custody, the 11 captured Thursday were allowed to leave in small skiffs after the mother ship was sunk. The action prompted a Pentagon spokesman to deny that the Navy had a “catch and release” policy regarding pirates

N0t good gentlemen.   A live pirates can return, but not a dead one.    I smell the heavy hand of the Eric Holder.

Tea Party participants defy stereotype, Shannon Travis:

Grand Junction, Colorado (CNN) — They are not typical Tea Party activists: A woman who voted for President Obama and believes he’s a “phenomenal speaker.” Another who said she was a “knee-jerk, bleeding heart liberal.”

These two women are not alone.

Some Americans who say they have been sympathetic to Democratic causes in the past — some even voted for Democratic candidates — are angry with President Obama and his party

Might I suggest that the MSM needs revise there talking points.

Evidently no one ever told Dim Won about Keith Olbermann, from Weazel Zippers:

UNBELIEVABLE: ‘It’s Troublesome’: Obama Slams Beck & Limbaugh for ‘This Kind of Vitriol’

This man is supposed to be OUR President, not just ‘President of those who bow down before him’. Nothing he does or says is Presidential. Everyday he proves he is a disgrace to his title, Our Country, and to Her People . . .

It is  troubling having a dumb, arrogant president who is so willing to lie to the American people.  Rush Limbaugh did not crash the economy.  Sean Hannity is not driving up health care costs.  It is the president who is.

Now I am not want to call Obama smart, much less a student of recent political history.  Yet you have wonder about a teleprompter dependent politician calling out a talk show host by name, Limbaugh, who has made career out talking and thinking at the same time, and without the need a teleprompter.

It is always appropriate to respond up the chain.  Limbaugh did and Byron York, Washington Examiner has it:

So let us compare on contrast:  in their current job, Limbaugh twenty years, no down years. Obama, one years plus, failure of  stimulus, health care, estranged allies, in short of failure of government.  If Obama was in touch with the voters like Limbaugh was touch with his audience, Obama would not be polling in the forties.

Next on the Obama agenda, war on energy.

Last on BO, Dan offers Obama some Riehl good advice, Riehl World View:

You can’t run a PR campaign and be an effective chief exec. But as Obama and the image they created for him is the only card they have, they seem resigned to simply trying to play it again and again – whether it’s worked in the past, or not.

It hasn’t worked except when played against the already faithful since the day after he was elected. And I don’t anticipate that changing between now and the fall. Limbaugh now has a free pass to stiff arm Obama for days to come. And he’s smart enough and been doing it so long, I doubt very much if he hurts himself in the process. He’s the pro here, Obama is the amateur. And when the stiff-arms start flying, I think it’s fair to predict that it’s Obama, not Limbaugh who will still be left on his back and down in the polls when this latest WH play ends

Pondering the purpose of nuke, from Johnathan Schell, Nation:

Simple, remember 1944, the last year before the down of the nuclear age.   While Schell may not remember the year or may pine to return to it, I for one do not.  Do you?