Outlawing Happy

Over at OTB, James points to an AP feed which reports they’ve banned ‘Happy Hour” in the UK. Obviously, the stated concerns are health-related.

It must, however, be asked if Government isn’t overstepping it’s bounds here?  More correctly, perhaps is it possible for government to overstep it’s bounds?  Can government get too intrusive? Steve Verdon over there, addresses that question well, in comments;

We will control the vertical. We will control the horizontal. We will control your diet, your exercise, your sex life, your television watching, your driving, your parenting, your computer usage, your reproduction, and…well just about everything else. There are no outer, inner, or any limits at all on how much control the State can have.

At what level are such people ‘free’?

I dunno. If I was faced with that level of hopelessness,  I might take up binge drinking, too.

I’ve done some housecleaning.

First, Bye Bye Memeorandum. Nice little widget you have there. It’s been a bloody YEAR since you last linked me. You link the blog on a regular basis, I’ll run your ad again. Not until.

Second I’ve cleaned up some code in the right sidebars to speed page reslution up somewhat.

Touched up the blockquote code a tad, too.

Page resulution times are down by several seconds, now.

Raymond Hernandez, New York Times, is reporting yet more tax fraud on the part of Represnetative Charlie Rangel:

WASHINGTON – Representative Charles B. Rangel’s legal team is reviewing his tax records to determine whether the congressman received a homestead exemption on a house he owned in Washington while living in several rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.

While Mrs. Pelosi and the rest of her ‘rats think it is appropriate for Mr. Rangel to write you tax laws, Charlie does not see fit to obey them himself.   One standard for the Joe the Plumbers but another for the elites of Congress.    /We can and should demand better.

By my reckoning, Charlie has claimed five seperate residences, his four rent controlled apartments in New York City and his home in the District of Columbia, as his primary residence.  By the way, if Charlie is a legal resident of DC, he can not legally represent New York in Congress.

Hat tip:  Betsy Newmark, Betsy’s Page.

Brian Maloney, Radio Equalizer, is reporting that Alam Colmes is leaving the Hannity & Colmes show:

After a remarkable twelve year run, Alan Colmes is set to leave FOX News Channel’s top-rated Hannity & Colmes at the end of the year, according to key sources.

Though the decision was said to have been made by Colmes himself, it is not yet known what future role he will play at the network.

In my not so humble opinion, Colmes left the show years ago.  The Colmes android that appeared on the show was incapble of dong anything more than reading democrat talking points.

Brian ius reporting that Sean Hannity may host the show alone.    Bad move.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… Bit’sBlog’s Nightly Ramble.

Yet another Monday, and only three shopping days left until ‘Black Friday”.

• Thanks for the feedback abot the new latout.  It pleases me it works for you. I musts say, this transition was a bit easier than some we’ve done.
• I’ve gotten the PDA feed working in this format. If it’s not working for you, leave me some feedback, telling me, and telling me what kind of PDA you’re using. It shouldn’t need any intervention from you to work well.
• Now they’re starting to make noise abut bailing out network TV? Oh, come on, folks. Enough is too much, already.
• These tax issues keep popping up for Charlie Rangel. There’s yet another on the table this afternoon. At what point do the leftist press start calling for his ouster? Drain the Swamp, remember?
• I see where a judge has ordered noise violators to listen to Barry Manilow. I’d call it cruel and unusual punishment… and I’m waiting for someone to make that case. Doubtless they’ll be listening to Barry’s cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. Sister Toldjah notes Michelle Malkin is on this as well, and says other songs used include Barney the Dinosaur, and The Platters “Only You”.  Hmmm. I dunno as Tony Wilson’s voice was ever torture… unless it’s getting played 300 times or so. Which come to think of it, was what working at a top 40 station in the 70’s was like, with the Manilow stuff. Or, Barney and Thomas the Tank engine through two kids, for that matter.
• Record numbers of voters in Venezuela. My guess is twofold: crazy Uncle Hugo loses, bigtime; and he won’t accept the loss. Actually, the second is no guess; He’s threatening use of Russian warships against his own people. Oh, don’t misunderstand me; the news will report Chavez has won bigtime. I seem to recall Cuba doing it the same way. It’s amazing to me that anyone thnks this guy is electable, without resorting to force. Then again, Obama amazes on that score, too.. and there’s much similarity between them, in the end.
• Reason Magazine has an interesting article up today.
  

  But now that he has won the presidency and must, as the cliché goes, shift from campaigning to governing, Obama and his economic team will have to face up to a paradox that most of the media overlooked during the campaign. Namely, the Obama campaign’s twin messages of bashing deregulation and embracing the Clinton years were inherently contradictory. Bill Clinton signed nearly every deregulatory measure that John McCain backed—the same measures that are now being blamed (wrongly) for helping cause the current crisis. What’s more, Clinton administration officials have credited these policies for contributing to the ’90s economic boom—the very “shared prosperity” that Obama says he wants to go back to.”In 1993,” the document explained, “the laws that governed America’s financial service sector were antiquated and anti-competitive. The Clinton-Gore Administration fought to modernize those laws to increase competition in traditional banking, insurance, and securities industries to give consumers and small businesses more choices and lower costs.”

  Everything in those passages is true. All that’s missing is credit to the GOP-controlled Congress elected in 1994 for passing most of the policies that led to the prosperity. But the Clinton administration, whatever its personal and policy flaws, should indeed be praised for signing and advocating this deregulation. These bipartisan financial policies, however, were the very same policies that Obama, running mate Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and other Democrats attacked during the campaign. “Let’s, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system,” Obama proclaimed in the second presidential debate.

  Funny how few remembered this one. One wonders if that whole thing wasn’t part of the driver for making Hillary Clinton a Secratary of State… so he wouldn’t get reminded in a few weeks time. As I’ve been saying in another venue, Obama is finding his rhetoric is having to be toned down, altered, or just outright reversed, to mesh with reality. This adjustment is now being pushed by the left as ‘proof’ that Obama is in fact a centrist, not the whack-job leftist he made himself out to be. Well, first off, no. He’s no centrist, because he still thinks the nonsense he offered us during the campaign is a good idea. This backtracking we’re seeing now is just Obama recognizing he can’t do what he promised.

  And think now; he’s not even been sworn in, yet. Clinton at least waited until het got his hand off the Bible and onto Monica Lewisnsky, before he pulled a 180, saying he tried, but couldn’t ‘give us’ the tax relief he’d promised…. As I pointed out earlier today, it’s happened with every Democrat since Johnson. You’d think they’d take the hint.

• The old double standard again. The Obama girls are going to be attending Friends school… the same Chelsea Clinton went to. So much for trusting government schools.  And Obama looks to be riding in a gas guzzler Limo. He’ll get a pas there, too. Is there anything wrong with either?  Of course not. Perhaps next time, we might dispense with the usual class warfare BS that invariably shows up during elections, only to be forgotten once they win the election? Nah, you and I both know better. What else, after all, would they have to run on? Just once, though, I’d like to see a Democrat actually do as they expect the mere peons to do. Or perhaps, even better, stop making such demands of the proletariat altogether. (And no, that word is not an idle choice… that’s how the left view us. Guess where that comes from?)
• The pee-to-water machine on the Space station isn’t working right. See, that’s what’s always bothered me about that thing; What happens when it breaks, or you get fixing it, wrong? And how’d YOU like to be the one to find out it’s fouled up? I’ve often wondered if they weren’t using such a contraption on the coffee machines at work.
•  The “Steal an election for Franken” campaign continues apace.
• Word from the “Radio Equalizer” that Alan colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes.  My guess? PMSNBC’s been offering him bucks.
• My Bills won bigtime, over the weekend over KC… 54 to 31. That’s more points allow by KC than during any other game in their history. That may sound impressive, until you consider the idea that KC hasn’t won a game in forever, losing 19 of their last 20 games.  One of the funniest moments of the game for me came when we heard the morons at CBS intone words to the effect that the KC Coach, Herm Edwards was making such improvements, and was doing such a good job.  What the hell would Edwards have had to have done to be called out by CBS for doing a bad job?  As the saying goes to get into trouble with those two flapping morons, he’d have had to have been caught in bed with a dead girl, or a live boy. I have to wonder if Dick Jauron wuld get the same treatment for the same given performance.  I doubt it.  Anyway, look, Bills fans… the game was a rout, no question… and it should have been…. though I’ll admit the rout was a bit louder than expected. A nice confidence builder for the Bills, particualrly for Bills QB Trent Edwards, who needed it. In the next few weeks, we’ll see if that new self-confidence is justified. That’s always the trick, isn’t it?
• This sounds like good advice. I wonder who will object?
• The war on Christmas continues.  I say we are diminished by stuff like this.
• Bruce McQuain, to his credit, has been saying for some time that an Obama win would have Israel going after Iran’s Nukes before the swearing in. Looks like that prediction is true, as I suspected.
• Dead from deoderant use? Okaaaaaayyyyy…
• By way of Conservative Grapevine, The fake street sign project.  They must have been watching Nightly Ramble’s ever changing lead-in graphics.

There’s a reason why Obama and his people are so busy back peddling from the goals they laid out during the campaign; reality.

Robert Stacy McCain  says it well:

Details, however, were not the Obama campaign’s strongest selling point. Rather, Obama succeeded by capitalizing on the kind of boundless Hope that prompted a Florida woman, Peggy Joseph, to her memorable declaration after a late-October campaign rally: “I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car; I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know, if I help him, he’s gonna help me.”

Such irrational expectations are inevitably followed by disillusionment. No prediction of what the next four years might bring is safer than this: The yawning gap between Hope and reality will produce a bumper crop of ex-Democrats.

It’s happened with every Democrat POTUS in my lifetime, as Mccain notes:

Every Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson has driven millions of his erstwhile supporters into the GOP ranks, and there is no reason to expect that Obama will break this precedent. Indeed, the absurdly inflated hopes generated by Obama’s campaign practically guarantee that his tenure in the White House will leave many Democrats bitterly disappointed — some so bitter that they become ex-Democrats like me.

A must read.

In this morning’s Financial Times:

The US government rode to the rescue of Citigroup, entering an agreement to guarantee up to $306bn in problematic assets and inject $20bn in capital to restore confidence in a bank that defines the term “too big to fail”.

The 11th hour transaction, announced just before midnight on Sunday in the US, calls for Citi to absorb the first $29bn in losses it sustains from its portfolio of risky assets – from residential mortgages to commercial real estate and leveraged loans, collateralised debt obligations and auction rate securities. Federal government entities will stand behind 90 per cent of the remaining losses, which could amount to $249bn.

The timing of this thing is of interest, given that Citi has never been very popular among so-called ‘progressives’, including Obama, Schumer, and the rest.

Let’s take a little  trip into history, courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods

This of course was pursued under Jimmy Carter’s CRA as modified by the Clintons. The result of that lawsuit, and others like it, have been repreatedly identified as the proximate cause of our current financial problems.

So now, as soon as Obama gets in, along with what is doubtless helpful tot he cause, a near super-majority of Democrats, Citigroup gets a huge bailout for the roubles that the Democrats caused in the first place, Obama among them?

Are those alarm bells ringing, yet?

Ooooohhh… this is rich. From the Washington Post:

NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week,” as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are among the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.

….

The timing of the Forecast Earth cancellation was ironic, since it came in the middle of NBC’s “Green Week,” during which the network has been touting its environmental coverage across all of its platforms. Forecast Earth normally aired on weekends, but its presumed last episode was shown on a weekday due to the environmentally-oriented week.

Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen’s future role at the network is not known.

Two things.

1. This brings to serious question just how committed NBC/Universal is to this ‘green’ nonsense. In simple terms, they were riding trhe green wave. Apparently, I’m not the only one who saw this as a wave of brown.
2. Clearly, ‘green is a luxury, and when survival is in the balance, green goes out the window, as we’ve been saying for years.

I suppose and expect that saner heads at NBC, what few there are left, have been looking for a way to drop this nonsense for years, now, because in reality it wasn’t all that popular a notion, no matter how they pushed it at us.  I expect financial reality was the wedge that brought it to it’s end at TWC.

Couple things.

First, I’ve added some color to the blockquotes, as you’ll see. It’s a little ham-handed, and I’ll be adjusting it, but the basics are in.

Secondly, I’ve spent some time with the comment editor, and gotten MCE working.

I think you’ll like what you see.

Update;

Added cleanup in the header, the SEO systems and little things in the CSS.

I find that MCE in the comments is a little unstable, possibly a JAVA problem. I may remove it but it’s there until I can get a handle on it.

We’ve been told often enough that what happens in film, and on TV, is disconnected from reality. So, too, it appears, are the actors, themselves.

LOS ANGELES -(AP)- The Screen Actors Guild said Saturday it will ask its members to authorize a strike after its first contract talks in four months with Hollywood studios failed despite the help of a federal mediator.

..

“We have already made difficult decisions and sacrifices in an attempt to reach agreement,” the statement said. “Now it’s time for SAG members to stand united and empower the national negotiating committee to bargain with the strength of a possible work stoppage behind them.”

By way of OTB, where Joyner says:

It’s difficult to imagine a less sympathetic labor class — or one less in need of collective bargaining — than Hollywood actors.

Indeed. A down economy is exactly the time to strike, right, guys?

What was I saying about Unions killing America?

You will have doubtless noted a new look for BitsBlog. Same layout… which is what really attracted me to the old one… but I think the color combo here is easier to read. The old one was a modification of  “Amazing Grace”. This one is the same modification of “Blue Grace”, both originally by Vladimir Prelovac.

It will take me a while to discover all the little problems that come up during such a changeout. If you find any, tell me about it.

Since the two are so similar in layout, I’m looking at working a way for readers to use a theme-changer the way Ed Morrssey used to at CQ.

Christopher Sherman at AP, last night::

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas (AP) – A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a routine hearing. Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself from the case, which alleges abuse at federally run prisons.

Attorneys for the vice president and other defendants leapt to their feet in objection as Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of giving the defendants special treatment.

“Now all of a sudden there is urgency,” Guerra shouted. “Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election.”

Guerra lost his bid for re-election in the March primary and will leave office in January. He was indicted last year on charges he extorted money from a bail bond company and used his office for personal business, but the charges were dismissed last month.

Guerra said the judge was wrong to allow motions to quash the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned.

Banales called a recess so he could try to contact the chief justice of the state Supreme Court for suggestions on how to proceed, and ordered Guerra, who had slipped out once during the hearing, to remain in the courthouse.

Guerra first said “I will not obey that order,” but then agreed to stay if the judge asked him respectfully.

I bring most of the article over and add the bolding so as to point out the mental condition of the this guy who is bringing charges against Cheney. This guy is apparently missing about half a loaf. Rejected by the voters in his area… likely because of his politics as much as for his inadequacy in the courtroom, he now seeks ‘respect’?

Had the judge slapped him with a well-justified contempt charge, it would have given the man another platform to perform his political extortion from.

Oh, there’s this, too:

RAYMONDVILLE – Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra was in the county jail Thursday facing three felony indictments.

Warrants were out for the arrest of Guerra’s longtime secretary Ofelia Guerrero and District Attorney’s Office investigator Marte Guillen, who each face a first-degree felony charge of theft by public servant.

Raymondville police arrested Guerra late Thursday morning after a grand jury handed down three indictments Wednesday night.

Nueces County state District Judge Nanette Hasette set bail at $10,500.

“I believe the charges are legitimate and I have every faith they will be sustained,” said Gus Garza, the special prosecutor in the investigation.

…

Guerra faces felony charges of theft, attempted theft and a separate indictment alleging tampering with governmental records, perjury and abuse of official capacity.

So, not only a little nutzoid, but a felon, as well?

Well, not a convicted one. The charges got dropped… not because he wasn’t guilty but because they wanted to spare the county problems, by most accounts. The charges though, did result in his not being re-elected, and now he’s desperate to make a name for hiomself by going after the biggest target imaginable, The Veep, in this case… Here’s the thing; Guerra wasn’t defeated in the general election, there. He was defeated in the Democat party primary. So, how does Guerra respond? By trying to please his erstwhile masters by attacking the boogeyman of Democrats everywhere… Dick Cheney.

Just a bit closer look at what is really behind these charges against Dick Cheney.

If one has to serve crow, it might as well be served in style, James Taratto, Best of the Web:

A Note to Our Readers

Brevity is the soul of wit, but that is not why subscribers received a blank email yesterday. We were having technical problems, which also delayed the column’s appearance on the Web site

Crow served in manner of which even the great Julia Child would have been proud.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… Bitblog’s Nightly Ramble.

Friday, and lots of fresh snow up the ground in Bitsville, today. A lot of it coming from the Obama people, and congressional Democrats. The forecast is for a cold winter, on both fronts. We have a lot of ground to cover. Let’s get going.

• Boortz looks at the downturn in the market and wonders, properly, I think, if Obama isn’t part of that.  I’m one who doesn’t think much of blaming one thing or another for various reactions the lemmings in the market might take, and what causes them to go over one cliff or another. But it must be said, he’s got a point, here, at leat as presented.
  

  We have a president-elect who …… has promised to raise capital gains taxes, perhaps even double them. So this guy is just waiting for you to jump into the stock market and make some money so he can seize a huge portion of it. Why jump now? Obama has been asked if he plans to go forward with his capital gains tax increase, but he’s not saying. Just hold off on your investments for a while until he tips his hand. If he goes the tax increase route you might want to consider trying to move your money offshore to grow until he’s out of the picture.

  … has promised to sign the so-called “Card Check” bill. Now again, you’re smarter than the average voter, and you realize that this unionization-through-intimidation idea is going to have an adverse affect on American business. As soon as the bill is signed union thugs (organizers) will start their petition drives at thousands of businesses across the nation. Large businesses and small businesses. America’s largest employer, Wal-Mart, will be one of the first targets. You don’t know how far this will spread, but you do know that every business that is unionized will be a poor investment for you. So you wait .. you wait to see what is going to happen with card check.

  … has promised to raise income taxes on the largest jobs producing segment of our economy, small businesses. During the campaign you heard him say that he would not raise taxes on 95% of small businesses, but you know that most of the jobs rest with the remaining 5%, and that’s where most of the new jobs would be created. The ignorant voters bought his 95% line, but you’re not that stupid. You saw through his rhetoric. So, again, why jump into the market now? Wait until we see what Obama is going to do with these tax increases on America’s jobs-producing machine.

  … has promised more business regulation. Obama is no fan of free enterprise. He loves government. Obama believes America is great because of government. You really think you need to wait before you make your investment moves until you see just what regulatory punishment Obama has in mind for the free market.

  Boortz is saying here that Obama is at least part of the maket reaction. And in saying that way, he’s quite correct. 

• And let’s add, as the Wall Street Journal does this morning,  the spectre of Henry Waxman as House Energy and Commerce Committee chair, with the obvious support of Nancy Pelosi. Think that’s not causing investors some concern? Boortz thinks so. So does the American Thinker.  So does the WSJ. So do I. As the WSJ carefully suggests:
  

  Mr. Waxman, speaking for the upscale precincts of Beverly Hills, wants to phase out coal and cars that use gasoline. The coastal elites who now dominate Democratic politics will happily trade the blue collar for the green collar.

  Suppose that will cause investors any concern?

• The Dinosaur Media continues to die… AP now reports they’re cutting 10% of their people. Faster, please.
• Weather Channel’s doing the same thing. I’ve been waiting for that one, personally. Now if only they could dump Bevis and Buttlick… …err… Abrams and Bettis, they might be able to save a few real weather people. Nah… if they did that, they’d not be able to pitch ‘green’ to us all the time.
• 

  What else has TIME been slanting?

  Oh, speaking of intentionlaly slanted news media… did you guys see this contract between Time,INC and  Angelina Jolie?  

  LOS ANGELES: When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt negotiated with People and other celebrity magazines this summer for photos of their newborn twins and an interview, the stars were seeking more than the estimated $14 million they received from the deal. They also wanted a hefty slice of journalistic input — a promise that the winning magazine’s coverage would be positive, not merely in that instance but into the future.

  Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is the first time, gang, or that it’s limited to ‘soft’ stories like this. I’m telling you, we’re going to find out that political coverage is getting slanted the same way. The only way I think we’re going to find out, though is for the Dinosaur media to fall over altogether, which they now appear to be doing.

• Where are these leaks coming from? Is this an example of the kind of thing we’re going to be dealing with after the coro— errr… the swearing in? And doesn’t it seem a little odd that the press is complaining about leaks? I may not be a navy sailor, but I can detect a smoke screen as well as anyone else.
• Reports are the Pentegon’s been getting hit with Cyber warfare. These attacks are nothing new, of course, but apparently, following election day, whoever’s attacking, turn the volume up to 11. Gee, maybe they sense a weakness, based on the election results, huh?
• I note with sympathy, the collapse onstage of Atty General Mukasey in DC last night. Sounds like a stroke to me, but then I’m not a medico. We wish him well.  I must say, I’m a little discomforted by the amount of people I saw blocking press access last night.
• Proof that just because you’re wearing a robe doesn’t mean you’re not a blithering idiot.
• Oil started the day at $49.55, and will be at $45 or below by midweek, if the current trends hold. Gasoline is down to below $2/gal in many locations. Now, we’re being told the reason is that the economy is in the tank. Note that one thing they don’t show you, however, is gasoline consumption figures for the last few months as prices have fallen.  Think about why.
• The attempt to steal Norm Coleman’s seat continues apace.
• My earlier rant on Eric Holder? Add this to it; Reynolds says Holder is calling for “reasonable” restrictions on internet speech.  Given the depth of what we’re talking about here, it should scare the living crud out of you that the whole thing depends on HIS definition of what’s ‘reasonable’.
• Benen is screaming taht the Fairness Doctrine isn’t coming back. Well, he’s correct as far as he goes. But Networked talk radio is still a target, if we’re to take this push for ‘Localism’  . (That link will take you to the official FCC site, explaining at least some of the plan.) Hume last night:
  

  The FCC requires stations to serve the interests of their local communities in order to keep their broadcast licenses. Some view that as a threat to nationally syndicated talk shows.In September of 2007 — then-senator Barack Obama wrote a letter to the FCC promoting localism and media diversity. Jim Boulet Jr., on the conservative American thinker Web site says: “Obama needs only three votes from the five-member FCC to define localism in such a way that no radio station would dare air any syndicated conservative programming.”

   Here’s the American Thinker article Hume mentions. You will recall, I’ve been in radio and Iknow the effects of this kind of nonsense. I’m telling you right now, this will kill AM radio. Now, think; why would Obama be writing the FCC back on 07 on the matter? Why is he so concerned abbout what Americans listen to?  You know why.  He needs to silence the critics. His supporters at Air America never got the listeners, because nobody was buying the hate they were selling. So it’s been with most leftie talk shows. The only way to deal with the problem he’s got is to use the force of government to silence his critics.

Paging Miss Andrea Sullivan, paging Mss Andrea Sullivan.    Representative Linda Sanchez,(D-CA) is wtth child.   The Representative  the one on the left, Patti Morrison, Los Angelos Times:

California Congresswoman Linda Sanchez is pregnant. Ordinarily, this would not make headlines, except to the Sanchez family and maybe in a newsletter to the 39th Congressional District in southeast L.A. County, which just elected her to her fourth term. It’s no big deal nowadays when members of Congress give birth. The first was Mrs. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, 35 years ago.

What makes Sanchez’s pregnancy news is that she is not married to the baby’s father — not yet, anyway

Andrea, after your obsession with attempting to prove that Trig Pallin was a bastard, and utterly failing, here is a real bastard in utero for you to investgate.   Crank up your keyboard, or shutter it.   I care not which.

Noted that the LSM sat on the story until after the election.