Nightly Ramble Friday

Good evening Mr. And Mrs. America and to all the ships at sea, and welcome to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web; The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• OBAMA ZOMBIES: John Hawkins, over at Right Wing News, has done an interview with ambush interviewer extraordinaire, Jason Mattera: the author of “Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.” A couple clips:
  

  Jason Mattera: That’s one thing Obama Zombies looks at — these tactics and strategies that have been successful, but the GOP has an awful outreach program. It’s just awful. John McCain was an awful candidate all around. I mean, gramps – God bless what he did for our country, but to be real, I mean gramps just looked like death. He did.

  Jason Mattera: Unfortunately, our generation is made up of a bunch of circus animals, spoiled brats who aren’t thinking for themselves — and they’re prime targets to be labotomized by liberalism. We’re able to live clueless lives today because we don’t have to worry about some government death squad rounding us up and axing us to death, as the young people have to look out for in Iran. But when you’re able to live a clueless life, it breeds a lazy logic, which is the hallmark of the Obama zombie.

  Jason Mattera: But conservatives are always going to have a disadvantage on the celebrity front. We just are. Not only does Barack Obama use celebrities to gin up interest, what he did during the campaign was transform that interest into get-out-the-vote tactics.

  So he’d have these free concerts with Dave Matthews. They’d have 30,000 to 40,000 people pack these stadiums. They’d register them to vote. They’d get their cell phone numbers. And then in some states, you can register to vote and vote on the same day, absentee.

  So they’d bus them then to the polling stations to go vote. All it took for young people was, “Wow, Barack’s hooking me up with Dave Matthews tickets. Sweet, I’ll vote for him.” That’s how it was.

  Not that any of this is particularly new.  I can recall specifically that at the height of his popularity, Harry Chapin was doing concerts on the cheap in support of various Democrats.  Did one here in Rochester, at the auditorium theater, at the time.  Back in the day, his candidate lost, for that event.  But it does bring to question how seriously considered such voting is.

• STUPAK UPDATE: The Tea Party Express is sending out word via e-mail, that their efforts to defeat Bart Stupak are meeting with wild levels of support.  To the point where they’ve already raised $50,000.00 in the campaign, and they haven’t even started on radio and TV yet.
• BUT WHAT WILL OBAMACARE REALLY DO? John Boehner has been saying that it will ruin the country.  I’ve thought that all along.  So of a lot of other people. We have been repeatedly warning about the massive costs involved here that the Democrats weren’t telling us about.  You may recall, as an example, that the president made a great big hairy deal (Or in Biden’s words, a BFD) out of creating jobs at Caterpillar.  (It’s interesting to note that Caterpillar recently removed itself from making over the road truck engines because it couldn’t keep up with a massive burden placed on them by the EPA … a burden that Obama approves of and wants to make even worse …. but I digress..)… but now the story is leaking out, the Caterpillar is being forced to take a tax cut of $100,000,000.00 per year. AT&T has chimed in more recently, with the rather startling figure of a $1 billion write-off to taxes to cover Obamacre care. Does anyone suppose that that’s not going to affect jobs? Others reporting similar write-offs to taxes as a result of Obamacre are Verizon, Deere,  Boeing, etc etc. Now, of course,  these people are following the law.  They are reporting to their stockholders, the kinds of projections that they are getting out of their financial people.  That is the law. If they don’t report this, then the Securities and Exchange Commission goes after them for not properly reporting to their stockholders the risks involved and the company’s financial future.
  What has happened here, is that the people who pushed socialist health care, lied to you.  Perhaps some of the more stupid who actually voted for this thing were lied to, as well.  They are either evil, or incompetent.  There’s no middle road here.
  So, how do the Democrat party respond?  By calling an inquisition.  In front of (ready?) Waxman and Stupak.  Yes, America, the very same.
  You see, we were supposed to think that this thing was completely benign. We wouldn’t see any massive tax increases out of this, it wouldn’t hurt jobs, it wouldn’t hurt productivity, it wouldn’t hurt your wallet.  But now all these companies are coming out of the woodwork and following the law and reporting to their stockholders the kind of cost that this thing is going to impair less with, and the democrats are having a fit.  Why?  Simply put they’ve been caught out in a lie.  I’ll tell you this; my first instinct is that the company’s being called up before Weitzman and Stupak for their little inquisition should tell the both of them to get it out of the sunshine.  That said, they probably won’t.  But I do hope that they don’t cave in on this thing.  That they correctly report the amount of costs that the democrats have settled us all with.  That they properly report, what a job killer Obamacare really is. I note Limbaugh, yesterday:

  

  Rush Limbaugh

  I’d like to give some advice to these companies who reported, as required by law, the impact of Obamacare on the bottom line.  Learn from the oil companies the last time they were attacked by Congress and fire back with both barrels.  Learn from the Republicans at the propaganda summit at the Blair House.  They didn’t sit there and take it.  Come prepared.  Leave as heroes.  Be clear and honest and firm because you will be embraced by the country and you will embarrass Congress, which has the lowest approval ratings in its history.  Take full advantage of this.  This is not a popular Congress, and Waxman epitomizes the old lore that politics is show biz for the ugly.  Certainly nobody loves Henry Waxman.  I know people that are hauled before these committees get scared to death.  I mean these guys can write laws to put ’em out of business, as the health care bill actually will accomplish when talking about the private insurance business.  But I think that the Democrats, politically speaking, if the pressure is kept on, are quickly approaching, in a political sense, room temperature here.  It’s a great opportunity.  It needs to be seen as a great opportunity.  Don’t back down, CEOs.  Don’t be like the auto company CEOs and go up there and grovel, look what happened to them.

  Embarrass these leftists.  Set your company free.  November is not that far away.  This Congress is not going to be in charge for long.  Don’t treat them as they view themselves.  Obama, if you want to understand Obama, everything will fall in place if you just understand that he views himself as a ruler, not as a president, and so do the Democrats on Capitol Hill and Congress and the Senate.  They view themselves as permanent rulers.  They are historically unpopular stewards working on borrowed time.  They occupy a reserved space in The Universe of Lies.  And that Universe of Lies will shrink if Americans tell the truth and don’t fall victim to intimidation tactics of these kind of thugs.
  FoxNews.com: “The CEOs of some of the country’s biggest companies are being summoned to Washington to defend claims that the health care reform law would cost them millions — a move Republicans say amounts to intimidation. Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on Friday fired off letters to the heads of Caterpillar, Verizon, AT&T and Deere after they and other firms reported that the health care overhaul would dig deep into their bottom lines. … Waxman, in his letters, called these estimates a ‘matter of concern’ and said they ‘appear to conflict with independent analyses’ showing the law would lead to a decrease in premium costs for large companies.  Waxman called the CEOs to Washington to testify at an April 21 hearing and requested full documentation from the firms detailing how they arrived at their estimates.”

  elsewhere in the day, Limbaugh called this move “Stalinist”.  He’s not at all incorrect about that.  So much of what the Democrats have come up with Can be correctly labeled as Stalinist , that one could logically wonder if there is in fact any separation between the two.  You’re going to hear a lot of charges over the next several days about how all this is a republican plot to spoil the victory of the Democrats in health care.  They’re royally pissed about being exposed to reality. The biggest problem that the democrats have right now is that these corporations actually have to report these things, their entire accounting procedure, and how they arrive at those figures, which is totally unlike what the Democrats did in the process of coming up with their Obamacare numbers.

• UNEMPLOYMENT: Our unemployment on a national basis, now stands at 20%. ladies and gentlemen of America, let me be among the first to welcome you to what is euphemistically referred to as “hope and change”  (And no, forget what the leftist press is reporting. Ask the people, not the government.
• GOOD FRIDAY: Today, by tradition, is the day when Jesus Christ was crucified. It’s called Good Friday of course, not because that what happened to Christ was particularly good, but because of what resulted from it.

Ahhh… isn’t that sweet? Obama intuitively knows what the majority of Americans need and that is what He considers “best” for it. Any dissent is just the echoes of Limbaugh and Beck (no, no vitriol from MSNBC’s lineup of Left cult shriekers. None at all. Nothing to see, move along) and We don’t have to pay any nevermind.

Darleen Click, Protein Wisdom

Passed along by a reader, in my feedback this morning:

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress.  Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn’t pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws.  The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that is being considered…in all of its forms.  Somehow, that doesn’t seem logical.  We do not have an elite that is above the law.  I truly don’t care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever.  The self-serving must stop.  This is a good way to do that.  It is an idea whose time has come.

Have each person contact a minimum of Twenty people on their Address list, in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.  This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

So, here we go….

Proposed 28th Amendment to the  United States  Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the  United States  that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the  United States .”

I must say that I am sympathetic to that cause, here.

That said, the constitutional amendment process, as we have discovered, is specifically designed to avoid passing amendments on a whim.  As such, any number of things can get in the way of its passage.

Then too, is the idea that if the last several months of congressional action has taught us anything, Congress, and the current White House occupant,  really don’t give a damn what the people want, and they don’t particularly care to follow Constitutional law, either.  Witness the number of things in the recent healthcare bill that run directly afoul of that Constitution.

So, I will pass this along, and let you guys kick it around a little.  Will it ever come to pass?  Will it achieve it’s objective if it does?  Those remain open questions. It does seem to me, though, that the GOP would do very well indeed to incorporate this complaint into their campaigning , and into their thinking.

Bravo Zulu, Navy,  Squids – 5, Pirates – 0, from NBC News:

NAIROBI, Kenya – U.S. naval forces said Thursday they’ve captured five pirates after exchanging fire with them, sinking their skiff and confiscating a mother ship.

Job well done gentlemen.  Now waiting for Eric Holder to screw this up.   Dead pirates are good pirates.

Rravo Zulu, Mr. O’Reilly, from David A. Patten, Newsmax:

No. 1 cable news host Bill O’Reilly said Tuesday that he will personally write a check to cover $16,500 in legal costs for the father of a fallen U.S. Marine who sued the members of a church who picketed his son’s funeral.

With respect to Phelps et al, I largely agree with Eric:

Personally, I find Phelps and his Westboro group to be among the slime of the earth. In my view, it’s not God he represents, here. In my view, Phelps and his people are among the myriad reasons why church attendance has been dropping off rather dramatically in this country over the last twenty years.  Former churchgoers have figured out for themselves that all too often the leadership in the various churches are making their various stands, based on their own hatreds and frailties, and not on God’s love.  I suggest Phelps to be among these. If Phelps and his peoplthe  had any love in them whatsoever, they would understand that love has nothing to do with what they’re doing.
That said, the ruling of the court was the right ruling to make.

I would not call Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church crowd slime.   At least you can use slime for fertilizer.

It is not “Drill, baby, drill”, but shuck, baby, shuck, Investors Business Daily:

It wasn’t exactly “Drill, baby, drill” but President Obama still surprised friends and critics alike by announcing Wednesday the administration would allow some off-shore drilling.

The operative word here is “some.” Industry experts and key congressional staffers told IBD that the policy change really creates only the possibility of drilling off Virginia’s coast. In most other cases, huge procedural, legal and legislative hurdles remain.

About the only thing which could persuade Obama allow for more domestic production of oil is the threat of Air Force One being grounded for lack of JP-4.

Would Obama know a drill even if sat on one? Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

She who makes Hank Johnson sound smart, Maxine Waters, (CA-35) video:

Hat tip: Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

Media goes stupid, Your Tango:

Chaz Bono, the only child of gay icon Cher and the late Congressman Sonny Bono, has filed papers in California Superior Court to officially change his name from Chastity, and to change his legal gender from female to male. Chaz began living as a man in March 2009, and his doctor has filed a declaration with the court saying that he had a gender-change operation last year, which People specified was a mastectomy. A hearing is scheduled for May 6

Get real.  Chez (nee Chasity) was born a female and a femele she will die.  Sex is immutable.  No surgeon can unfo the work of God.   Chaz can change her name.  She can not change her sex.

Welcome, one at all, to the most intense nightly raid anywhere on the web … The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

For those who didn’t see it on Facebook, I passed the driving test for my new employer.I’m fairly excited about it actually, for a lot of reasons. with any degree of luck all be able to fill you in on a bit more of it sometime next week.  For the meantime please accept that as an explanation for why today’s Ramble is being delivered a few minutes late.

• THE FCC: Peter Suderman says it’s….”A doddering bureaucracy whose time has passed” But watch this:
  

  As exercises in bureau-cratic hairsplitting go, it is tough to beat the sheer audacity of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s recent declaration, “I’ve been clear repeatedly that we’re not going to regulate the Internet.” In reality, between its recently released National Broadband Plan and proposed Net neutrality guidelines, that’s exactly what the agency is planning to do.

  Does anyone recall why the “March of Dimes” was founded? OK< I know.. it’s not a government agency, but watch the point here... Wikipedia…

  Polio was one of the most dreaded illnesses of the 20th century, and had killed or paralyzed thousands of Americans during the first half of the 20th century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt therefore founded the March of Dimes as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis on January 3, 1938. Roosevelt himself was paralyzed with what at the time was believed to be polio, though it now seems this diagnosis might have been mistaken. The original purpose of the Foundation was to raise money for polio research and to care for those suffering from the disease

  Wikipedia goes on to mention elsewhere that Polio was wiped out by a vaccine developed in the 50‘s. Yet, 50 years later the organization has reinvented itself into one going after ALL birth defects.
  Now don’t misunderstand me here.  My intent is not to denigrate the march of dimes or the good work that they continue to do today.  But it is a natural occurrence that once any arge organization’s purpose has run it’s course, that the people within said org will invariably try to reinvent themselves so as to keep the place going. It’s true in private industry and it’s certainly true in government. As an example, the FCC.  As a former holder of a first class radio-telephone license… back in the days when it actually meant something… I can tell you that the FCC’s  biggest function even back in the day, was as a road block to progress.  I certainly do not regard their attempts to get into the digital age  to be any better than I did the commission of old.

• FORGET THE BARN DOOR, BABS… THE HORSE IS GONE ALREADY: So, I see Babara Boxer telling her fellow Democrats not to take their seats for granted? As a casual observation I would suggest that ship has already sailed the moment the Healthcare monstrosity got passed.  The big deal now, is trying to avoid the political consequences of that ill-advised action.
• RUNAWAY REGULATION ISN’T REFORM: So says Jim DeMint. He’s quite correct, of course, but you wouldn’t expect the democrats, whose be all and end all is government, to ignore what’s that point.  Did anybody doubt that when the democrats started talking about reform, it meant a government takeover?  Anybody but the Obama faithful, I mean.
• JUST REMEMBER FOLKS… HE’S A DEMOCRAT: Just watch this one.  This is Hank Johnson, the Congress critter from Dekalb County Georgia.  And a Democrat, of course. About a minute twenty or so in.
  
  No, as best I can tell, this is not a joke for April 1.  Not intentionally, anyway.  This is the group that wants to run your healthcare. Feel better now, don’t you?

The democrats are party of cowards, from John Koziol, Citizen of Loconia:

The scheduled appearance of 1st District Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter at a “town hall” meeting at Laconia City Hall on Thursday is shaping up to be an interesting affair with critics of her vote in favor of health care reform blasting her for holding what some have described as a tightly-controlled “victory lap.”

Shea-Porter, D-Rochester, will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers in City Hall. The room can accommodate 60 people. Tickets will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis and local Republicans including Skip Murphy of the website www.granitegrok.com are warning that those seats will be rapidly snapped up by pro-Shea-Porter attendees, not her constituents at large

Hat tip:  Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.

And from, Jordan Fabian, Politico:

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) canceled a town hall on the new healthcare law Tuesday because of concerns about the security of the event.

The congressman’s office cited safety issues at the facility where the meeting was to take place and threats to his office, according to a report by News21.

“We just thought it best to cancel it for safety concerns

Hat tip:  Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

See the pattern?

I am saved*.

Memo to the residents of Ltthona and Tucker, Georgia, your congressman is a moron.  Vote him out of officer or suffer the embrassment.   The choice is yours am saved.   Hank Johnson (GA-4) is a moron,  video:

Hat tip: Michelle.

For the record, I reject the premises that there any possibility that the island of Guam will simply tip over;  the idea of anthropogenic global warming, that Dim Won’s off-shore oil announcement was anything other than a cynical  attempt to buy Lindsay Graham’s vote for Cap and Tax and that Congressman Johnson’s IQ is much north of room temperature.  What say you?

[*]I had considered such provocative ledes as Al Gore to sell his mansion, go on a diet and join a monastery; Mrs. Clinton to file for divorce and changer he name back to Rodham and finally Barack Obama to become Bari Obama and begin hormone treatments for a sex change.   But Lord I am saved, Johnson has produced a story even dumber than my April Fools day ideas.  Life is good.

Henry Waxman is the new Ken Lay.  It has  been said the an honest man has nothing to fear.  The demorats are sweating bullets.   The Obami fear, honest accounting, from the Washington Examiner

Dems fear honest Obamacare accounting

Remember the Enron scandal in 2001, which drove a bipartisan majority in Congress to demand far-reaching reforms in corporate accounting? Democrats have discovered this week that maybe they can’t handle the truth — at least not when it exposes the real economic effect of Obamacare on private sector companies large and small.

Obama economy bleeds jobs, Conor Dougherty and Jeff Bater, Wall Street Journal:

A survey of private employers shows they shed 23,000 jobs in March in a sign that the labor market remains a mixed bag in an economy that’s otherwise growing again.

The private-employer report came two days before the Labor Department issues its own, broader job report and the negative number came as a disappointment to many who were expecting both measures to mark a turning point into positive territory.

The Labor Department’s report, which is still expected to show job gains, includes government workers and is influenced by factors that don’t show up in the survey released Wednesday by payroll

The private sector shrinks while the public sector expands.   Sound like a plan to me.

Hat tip:  Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.

Obama still palling around with terrorist. Sarah was right.  Obama did pal ar9und with terrorist, like Bill Ayers.   Nothing has changed.  Ok Jodie Evans, a/k/a Code Pink, is cuter than Bill Ayers and not quite as violent.   However Evan is a terrorists,  she preaches violent protest, and she is Obama’s political ally and supporter, from Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

Mike Nifong, redux; Ann Althouse:

A 15-year-old girl kills herself, and 9 of her classmates are arrested on various charges… but what did they do?

Of course, it’s terrible when a young person commits suicide. And a suicide may have chosen self-murder because of the bad relationships in her environment. But if we don’t favor arresting people who are very mean to people who don’t commit suicide, why would we favor these arrests when someone does commit suicide

I don’t see the problem.  If  Phoebe Prince had been but pregnant and willfully chosen to kill her unborn child, the liberals would be applauding her decision.   Iif Prince was old enough to legally  choose to kill another person, then surly she was old enough to freely choose to kill herself, as regrettable  as her decision was.   Suicide is not a problem.  It is a choice.  If you don’t like the choice, don’t make it.  End of problem.

Comedy Gold:  Intolerance of dissent is fascism Evan Coyne Maloney takes a “Trip Down Memory Lane”, video:

“We will have come and kill somebody I quess.”  Imagine Rugene Robinson’s outrage if a right winger had but said that.

Hat tip: Good Lt., Jawa Report.

Ramble Back, Eric:

CONSERVATIVE LEADER? Speaking of Saint Andrew, he notes Erick Ericson of Red State making a rough transition to the world of the lamestream media.

I find it amusing, and revealing, that the left gets upset when Erick Ericson makes valid commentary, albeit it in less than complimentary language, but mutters nary a word when the Reverend Al Sharpton makes a career or telling lies.  Sharpton lied about Tawana Brawley being raped and lied about John Lewis being called a nigger.

As for Ericson, I suspect that a large plate of crow part of his deal with CNN.

And I’ve watched congressional hearings.  There’s no chance that four CEO’s are going to explain the accounting code to the fine folks in Congress; explaining how to boil water would challenge the format.

Megan McArdle, via Don Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek.

Explaining elementary principles of accounting to a congresscritter as dumb as Henry Waxman is simply impossible.

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

• HEY… CSEA…. Glenn Reynolds suggests that public-sector unions should be illegal.  I think he’s right. Danny Donahue, are you listening?
• NOT SOCIALIST? FAIL….. Sorry, Mickey.  I’ve got a lot a love for you, man, but you missed this one .
  

  When the parties are competing domestically mainly on the issue of who can rev up the economy, will the relatively small differences between them (neither party’s socialist, neither is for killing Social Security or Medicare or-soon-Obamacare) yield more vicious campaigning, faculty politics style?

  Actually, they’re both socialist, to varying degrees… and precisely because neither is for killing Social Security or Medicare, or for that matter Obamacare, or any other form of governmental largess…  even though the majority of America would prefer them doing that if actually  given that as a choice. Are you beginning to understand why the Tea Parties are considered such a threat by both parties, now?

• THE CRABBY FEMINIST SYNDROME:
  

  It’s always been obvious David Brooks has always had a problem with women who succeed, but even I was surprised that his vendetta against famous, successful women became so hysterical this morning that he insinuated that Sandra Bullock should have been at home making a sandwich instead of winning an Oscar, and that would have saved her marriage.

  This from Amanda Marcotte… who I won’t bother linking here.  James commented on this last night at OTB:

  The juxtaposition of Bullock’s winning the Oscar and the revelation of her husband’s betrayal in such close proximately was striking. But the idea that her husband would have been faithful if only Bulloch had been less powerful in her portrayal of a mother adopting an underprivileged behemoth almost certainly never crossed Brooks’ mind.

  That Marcotte would read something so bizarre into such a benign column is just baffling.

  I tell him:

  That’s a polite way of putting it, James, but the fact is it isn’t baffling at all. She simply turning on “the angry feminist”. It’s clear, that everything that she comes up with gets filtered through that rather narrow mindset. Think Andrew Sullivan, the without the accompanying the transition to the far left. She started there.

  There seems to be something to the idea that she’ll go off the deep end like this every 28 days or so. Beyond that, though, there seems a syndrome not unlike what we see with Saint Andrew “The Incontinent” Sullivan, who also views the world through the militant distorted prism of his chosen sexuality. The other parallels involved, I will leave to your own discerning.

• CONSERVATIVE LEADER? Speaking of Saint Andrew, he notes Erick Ericson of Red State making a rough transition to the world of the lamestream media.
  
  Why in the world is he making excuses? Seems to me the “firey comments” are why he’s even being considered, here. And James? Just because someone with a history of conservative comments shows up on CNN doesn’t make one a “conservative leader”. (Consider the specter of Charles Johnson, for example.) Indeed, it cuts them down a few notches from that level. because of the song and dance one must do to maintain such a position.. as in what the vid shows us.
• BLACK TEA PARTY TYPES? I keep hearing reports from the front lines that the lamestream media types who show up to cover tea party gatherings go well out of their way to avoid showing any minorities who happen to show up.  Once again the blogs do the jobs the media refuses to, because the truth runs against their political grain.
• FRED PHELPS AND OTHER INVERTEBRATES : Yes, I did notice the case where the one man slug festival, Fred Phelps, won a point against a father whose son was killed in Iraq. In case you’ve been off planet for a while, Phelps is the moron who has been picketing military funerals and says the soldiers marines have been killed because, as he claims, God is punishing America for condoning homosexuals.  God may not approve of homosexual behavior, but I don’t seem to recall there being anything in the Bible about God hating anybody. Even Saint Paul (whose words are, I assume, the excuse that Fred Phelps uses to justify his own hatreds) …never said anything of the sort.
  Personally, I find Phelps and his Westboro group to be among the slime of the earth. In my view, it’s not God he represents, here. In my view, Phelps and his people are among the myriad reasons why church attendance has been dropping off rather dramatically in this country over the last twenty years.  Former churchgoers have figured out for themselves that all too often the leadership in the various churches are making their various stands, based on their own hatreds and frailties, and not on God’s love.  I suggest Phelps to be among these. If Phelps and his peoplthe  had any love in them whatsoever, they would understand that love has nothing to do with what they’re doing.
  That said, the ruling of the court was the right ruling to make.  To rule in any other fashion would set a dangerous precedent.  I must say though, I was pleased to see Bill O’Reilly dig into his own wallet to cover the $16,000.00 expenses.  I have long held that O’Rilley has been one of the larger horse’s backsides in the media today.  But, credit where credit is due.  He did a good thing here.  To the point where, frankly, I must give some thought to altering that long held position.
• WHY IS CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CRUSHING THE LIBERAL MEDIA? In yesterday’s ramble, I mentioned that the ratings for the liberal media, including CNN, were even more in the toilet than they have been.  Today Henry Blodgett discusses why. (BBCT Roger Hedgecock.)
• THE RUBIO CRIST DEBATE: Highlights here.

Jake Tapper says this morning that the White House has given a go ahead to offshore drilling.

On Wednesday morning at Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility in Washington, DC, President Obama will announce that his administration will allow the lease sale to go forward for oil and gas exploration 50 miles off of the Virginia coast — the first new sales of offshore oil and gas in the Atlantic in more than two decades.

The howling from the left is predictable. At the Huff and Puff for example:

“Its like a kick in the face” says Jonathan Ruiz of Florida International University.  Jonathan campaigned for Obama for fourteen months, and now he’s livid about today’s announcement by the administration to open half the east coast to offshore drilling.

“I was born near Florida’s Emerald Gulf Coast.” says Graham Penniman of University of Central Florida.  “The memories that I have on those beaches brings me so much joy, that every night I fall asleep thinking about the moons reflection across the water. To imagine my beach any other way destroys my heart.”

…

Youth, the millennial generation so inspired by Obama to vote in record numbers, have the most to lose from the expansion of drilling.  Even some coastal governors and senators will be angry about the announcement because of the small amount of oil and huge environmental risks.

This is of course, utter nonsense, driven into what laughingly passes for their brains by Al Gore and others.

Offshore drilling; let's get going

And as usual the objections don’t make sense in a capitalist society….

Lets really listen to Megan Maloney at the University of Central Florida when she says “As a young America citizen I am fearful for my future because of Obama’s decision of pursuing more offshore drilling off our coasts.”  And Keziyah Lewis of Florida State University points to the DOE report on the cost of actually extracting that energy to say “obviously offshore oil drilling just doesn’t make sense when you compare the cost of infrastructure, research, etc, to the amount of fuel that is attainable, it’s like throwing money down the toilet.”

The possibility of the Department of Energy report being politically motivated,  apparently escapes Lewis, apparently because the language in the report doesn’t run afoul of liberal sensitivities. (Would Lewis take the report on face value if it did?)

There’s one other thing however, that escapes Lewis… that should be intrinsically obvious to anyone who actually understands and approves of capitalism;   (And such are hard to find among the hard core Obama supporters)…  No private enterprise is going to go through all the government hoops and the initial expense involved unless they are damn sure they’re going to get a return on their investments of time and money etc. That’s the point that came up during the discussion about ANWR, and the number of leases that went undrilled. a claim was that such drilling wasn’t needed, and the evidence was that there were a number of leases which went unused.  Which, of course, ignores the idea that research proves there wasn’t oil under there to bring up in the first place. Nobody’s (Except a liberal) is going to invest without a good shot at a return on that investment.

In all likelihood, the amount of drilling a allowed to buy this plan of Obama’s, will be too little.  Then again, the next president will undoubtedly be less of a hard core socialist, and thereby more realistic about things, and can deal with that issue by opening the taps.

In the meantime, however, what we have on our hands is a tacit admission from the president of the United States that he lied to the people while a candidate for the office.  You may recall, that he gave John McCain a rather hard time over his comments about domestic drilling.  Now, suddenly, he’s doing exactly what he complained about.

In my Pajamas Media article of a little over a year ago, I suggested that Obama would be forced to change his rhetoric as regards terrorism and in the end will gravitate toward exactly the policy that was laid out by President Bush and his administration.

I dare to suggest  that Mr. Bush is going to be vindicated over the next four years by President Obama himself. Vindicated not in rhetoric, since left-wing rhetoric is always and forever vitriolic against any successful Republican. No, Bush will be vindicated thanks to the policies sure to be adopted by Mr. Obama and the Democrat-run Senate, House, and State Dept.

I make this assessment based on the proposition that President Obama is a pragmatist at heart. He goes with what works to keep himself in power. One cannot, after all, be such an astute manager of his own spectacle without being in large part a pragmatist.

If we accept the lessons of history, in this case the Clinton administration, Democrats have learned how to change political reality.  They have learned how to alter the perception they are on the run from an unruly mob, into one that suggests what is really going on is that there is a parade — one that they are leading. Finding in their pragmatism something that works and that someone else has offered, and then getting out in front of it as if it was their plan to begin with.  This has been their big talent for the last 20 years or so.

Indeed, it is Obama who apparently is doing the most in terms of recognizing (the far left’s bleeding anti-Bush vitriol notwithstanding) that Mr. Bush didn’t do that bad of a job after all. He’s adopting the vast majority of his anti-terrorism and economic policies (i.e., the bailout plans)

Apparently, this trend has been taken with energy, as well. It’s been said, and rightly, that all Obama’s promises have expiration dates. Clearly that is true here. But here’s the reason, in this case is that his  enviro-whackjob zeal ran headlong into reality… and reality won, as it always does. The fact of the matter is, that Obama’s facing the reality that economic recovery isn’t possible without the energy to do it with… exactly as I suggested he would when it was Candidate Obama.

That said, I will guarantee you the one thing you will not see among the left, is the admission that what Obama is doing here is vindicating the Republican agenda…. and he’s doing exactly that.

And I suppose and expect that’s was really got the left in an uproar of this morning.

So who is the Tea Bagger? I won tries to muddle the message, from USA Today:

President Obama said many Tea Party followers have “mainstream legitimate concerns,” but their movement is built around a “core group” of opponents who call him a socialist and question his citizenship.

Is the Dim One calling the Reverend Al Sharpton a Tea Bagger? From Conservative Blog Watch:

“Americans overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected Barack Obama

Dumbo hates being called a socialist.  Yet Obama has nationalized, General Motors, health care and student loans.  Obama’s mere words can only mask but not alter his socialist core.  He action define Obama a socialist.

Obama Care Strikes again, from Associated Press:

NEW YORK — Insurer Prudential Financial Inc. said Monday that it will take a $100 million charge in the first quarter in relation to the recent health care overhaul legislation.

The life insurance and annuities provider said in a regulatory filing that it will take the charge against earnings in the first quarter.

Henry Waxman will not be happy.

John McCain’s Brain on drugs, P9litico:

Sen. John McCain wants to call in the cavalry to defend Arizona from illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico — and to shore up his own right flank.

Three words Moron McCain:  Posse Comitatus Act

Question of the Day, “What Is John McCain Smoking?” From Dan Riehl, Riehl World View.   All the more reason to retire McCain, the old guy not Stacy.

What is Eugene Robinson smoking? When Major Hasan murdered twelve American soldiers Fort Hood, Texas, Robinson blamed the shootings on the Army’s failure to protect and worried about offending Muslims,  from 10 November, 2009, Washington Post:

Had authorities learned in advance of any link between Hasan and radical Islam — as opposed to the mainstream Islam practiced by more than a billion people worldwide — they could have moved immediately to ensure that Hasan could not hurt others or himself. That wouldn’t have been an act of bigotry, it would have been an act of prudence, even compassion.

How is the Pentagon supposed to tell the difference between reasonable caution and blatant discrimination? There are thousands of Muslims in uniform, serving their country at home and abroad. Ask them.

Yet when the Eric Holder directed FBI arrested citizens in Michigan and Ohio for an alleged plot to kill police officer, Robinson is quick to condemn both the right and Christians, from the Washington Post via RCP:

Iceland bans strip clubs, young males and immigrant women hit hardest. No big deal.  I had no immediate plans to travel to Iceland anyhow.   However I did find the discussion of the article on Feministing to be interesting, provocative and a just a wee bit hopeful.   Any time a liberal discusses the idea the limiting a power of an individual to make a frec choice a not necessarily a good idea, I get a warm conservative tingle.

Being a fair minded, albeit sexist,. individual, I feel obligated to point out the disparate impact of Iceland’s ban.   It adversely affects young males, who often feel the need of testosterone boost without also impacting females from boosting their estrogen levels.    In fairness Iceland should also ban female pornography, to with supermarket rags the Nation Enquirer,whatever clutters the aisle of what p[asses for supermarkets in Iceland.

Today the headlines read something like:  Government Stands to Reap $7.5 Billion Profit from Sale of Citi Stock.  This was reported in both the Wall Street Journal and our local rag, the Des Moines Register, and while estimates vary as to the extent of this transaction, the range of the government’s take is somewhere between $7 and $7.5 billion.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this.  The federal government bailed out Citigroup in the fall of 2008, and took an ownership interest in the company in exchange for TARP (or is it TRAP?) funds.  The purpose of TARP was to shore up the banking system, and in the process, the economy.  While many of the banks that took TARP money claimed to not need it, clearly Citi did.  Then Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took a huge flier on this company, and now it is reaping a healthy profit for its risk-taking.  One could conclude that it was entreprenurialism at its best.

I would like to see credit given where credit is due.  I’d like to see President Obama (or someone in his administration) say something positive for a change about the previous administration.  This deal worked out very well for the US taxpayer, as did most of the “bailouts”.  The pure banking plays the government made were excellent investments.  The other companies:  Chrysler, GM, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, well, haven’t quite worked out as well.  The difference, as far as I can tell, is private enterprise rather than outright government control.  Perhaps if AIG stands a chance to survive, the government would do well to leave it alone.

Just a thought.  And please, when something works out well, give credit where credit is due.  That’s what adults do.

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

• CNN: THE NEW ERR AMERICA: Bill Carter at the New York Times:
  

  CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.

  The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.

  CNN, for its part, has made no indication whatever that it plans on changing it’s leftward lean… which, like Err America… is precisely the reason for its impending demise. I find it interesting that such a report should come from the new who is suffering for precisely the same reason as CNN, MSNBC, and the rest.  Do I expect CNN to keel over anytime soon? Oh, they’ll remain on the air… their foreign services are the big deal right now and are making more than the domestic. They’ll likely stay afloat for a bit longer than Err America did…. but barring a course correction, they’ll end up folding, eventually.  One cannot continue forever without making money, after all.  I should point out that one could hardly qualify for “the most rusted name and news” when those that supposedly trust them are running away to other networks, particularly Fox, in droves.

• DID I CALL IT? I suggested when Candidate Obama was  saying:
  

  Instead of retreating from the world, I will personally lead a new chapter of American engagement. It is time to offer the world a message of hope to counter the prophets of hate. My experience has brought me to the hopeless places. As a boy, I lived in Indonesia and played barefoot with children who could not dream the same dreams that I did.

  Well, along comes a wire story reportedly in in this morning’s WaPo, and the SanFran Chron:

  Amid cries of “God is Great,” the former chief of staff of the Indonesian army joined hard-line Muslim activists in a Jakarta ballroom last week to denounce the United States — and praise China as a model of how to stand up to Washington.

  “We should do what China has done; America must follow our rules,” declared retired Gen. Tyasno Sudarto. Veiled women and bearded men, seated separately to avoid mingling of the sexes, shouted praise for Allah and jabbed their fists in the air. Another speaker hailed China for defying Washington’s “neo-liberal” economic creed.

  I suggest that my original point has been verified; Just because we’re kissing their asses doesn’t mean they’re going to like us. And Obama’s foreign policy has been shown to be flawed at it’s foundation, as I suggested it would be. Can we get a real leader, now?

• RICKY MARTIN COMES OUT: In other news, huge light in sky reported in east this morning.
• STACY GETS INTERVIEWED: A good interview of Stacy McCain.

Geraghty’s Law, the deluxe collectors edition, Jim Geraghty, National Review:

BARACK OBAMA

A Long Post: The Complete List of Obama Statement Expiration Dates

By popular demand, a comprehensive list of expired Obama statements…

Holy Cow! MSNBC discovers the Second Amendment, Mike Stuckey, MSNBC:

Record numbers now licensed to pack heat

Firearms deaths fall as millions obtain permits to carry concealed guns

Waving a chromed semiautomatic pistol, the robber pushed into the building in the bustling Five Points neighborhood of Columbia, S.C., just before 11 p.m. on April 11, 2009. “Gimme what you got!” he yelled, his gun hand trembling.

Attorney Jim Corley was one of four people in the room, the lounge area of a 12-step recovery group’s meeting hall. “He said, ‘Give me your wallet,'” Corley recalled. “So I reached around to my back pocket and gave him what was there.”

Unfortunately for the gunman, later identified as Kayson Helms, 18, of Edison, N.J., that was Corley’s tiny Kel-Tec .32, hidden in a wallet holster and loaded with a half-dozen hollow points. Corley fired once into the robber’s abdomen. The young man turned. Corley fired twice more, hitting him in the neck and again in the torso. Helms ran into the night and collapsed to die on a railroad embankment 100 feet away.

Hat tip:  Little Miss Attila.

Remember, correlation is not causation.

The Reverend Al Sharpton, Liar, Liar pants on fire, video:

Hat tip: Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

It seems that the Reverend Sharpton is a dumb as democrat congressman, he can’t get past the talking points.

Senator Smalley gets stumped ,video:

Has any democrat read their bill yet?  Till they do, it is open season.