Deja-Pooh

You don’t really think that’s going to happen, do you, Billy? Really?

I’ve yet to see two of the three admit they were wrong on anything of consequence.

But if we’re going to keep this notion that everybody’s entitled to have whatever they want medically paid for by their neighbors, then we are finished. We are finished as a country; we are finished as a society.

Rush Limbaugh, via, Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review.

Byran, Hot Air, states the obvious:

Two primary wins, two seconds. No one else has been as broadly competitive so far. He has the most delegates and the most money in the bank, and he’s back to campaigning in South Carolina for Saturday’s primary. He’s in a statistical tie for second there. With four primary contests and three different winners, there isn’t a solid front-funner in the GOP but there is a front-runner for now, and that’s Mitt Romney.

As to Bryan’s question:

Am I the only one breathing a sigh of relief that the front-runner coming out of Michigan isn’t McCain or Huckabee?

Byran, you are not alone.

Note, I don’t like the idea of open primaries.   I think that I have constitutional right as a republican to select an elector without any non-republcan voting in my primary.   It is the right of free association.

In particular I don’t like Michigan’s open primary.   John McCain imported Joe Lieberman to campaign for democrats and independent to vote for McCain.    Are we as republicans somehow supposed to select our nominee based on the votes of democrats?

I see the votes are in, in Michigan. if there’s anything surprising about them, it’s that relatively few of the blogs have made notice of the results. I suppose that to some degree, there’s a reason for the lack of excitment, particularly among the blogs… It’s the result of the lack of controversy involved. At least on the Republican side, I mean. Nobody expected Governor Romney to do badly. It’s nothing more than name recognition, given his father was governor of Michigan. Three times. A real conservative doesn’t have much of a chance in Michigan, frankly, so of, what did have a chance Romney was probably the best choice to win the whole thing. A sad commentary on the state of the voters in that state, isn’t it?

The story on the Democratic side is perhaps less of a surprise than Romney’s victory. There’s a real mess breewing with this vote tonight, and it’s one I’ve not said much about.

As of this writing Hillary Clinton is the front runner. however, the number two position is held by uncommitted delegates. Still and all, the Democrats awarded no delegates tonight in the Michigan primary.

Why would that be? My personal read is that the Michigan Democratic Party is gambling on the idea that the national party doesn’t want a big fight over credentialing of delegates at the DNC. Doesn’t make for good television theater. The Democrat leadership currently is insisting that the allocation of delegates will be based on today’s vote. Given what we’ve seen in past elections, I’m not quite sure I trust that, but there it is. In the end, though, the Democrats have a full scale mutiny on their hands.

I’ve seen traffic from inside Michigan that suggests that the Alabama campaign and the campaign of John Edwards are both urging their followers to cast ballots for quote “uncommitted”. of course there are the usual denials that the national campaigns in each of the candidates is involved… (They blame “grass roots efforts”)…. I’ve even seen traffic involving a spot from John Conyers and his wife regarding a spot that ran on local radio in Detroit…(950/WWJ, if I’m not mistaken) which said that Obama backers should not “Surrender their vote”.

Since the number that I saw constitutes approximately half of those that voted for Hillary Clinton, and the number of uncommitted voters was only slightly above the people who actually voted for Obama anyway, in spite of the campaign’s ‘advice’, there is a large question mark as to how this is going to play out.

It seems clear to me that there is a civil war in the Democratic Party of today. And yes, we keep remarking on that point, but frankly it’s the biggest story coming from the Democrats right now. The argument centers around not what’s best for the country, but what’s best for the individual Democrat candidates.

Somehow, I doubt that’s going to impress the average voter.

Ed at Captain’s Quarters seems to be doing the best live coverage in blogdom at the moment. Memeorandum will have updates through the night, I don’t doubt. But don’t expect many to get overly excited about it.

Addendum:  (David L)

Glancing over Michelle’s read, I note that Mitt Romney won among republicans and evangelicals.    McCain has yet to win a among republicans and Mike Huckabee’s strength among evangelicals might be slipping. 

Quite glad to see to that two dirty tricks did not work.    Kos did not get the democrats out to vote for Romney.   McCain carried the ‘rats.   And McCain’s trick of importing Joe Lieberman to get cross-over votes flopped.

I have been none too impressed by Mike Huckabee, aside from his qualities as a snake charmer.    However the Huckster’s declaration that we need a amend the constitution to bring it in line with God’s views puts Huck somewhat south of Dennis Kucinish as a candidate.

Mike Huckabee is going to force those of us who have wanted more religion in the town square to reexamine the merits of strict separation of church and state. He is the best advertisement ever for the ACLU. Even if you share his ultimate views on the definition of marriage, or the desirability of abortion on demand.

 Lisa Schiffren, National Review.

By way of the Conservative Reader, I see Fred Thompson has hit his million dollar mark. The timing seems about right for his gaining momentum. Now, if the amounts  of people he gains in this momentum shift are right….

There’s an old joke about the cat as a power source. A cat will always land on it’s seet when falling, tis said. However, it’s also said that a slice of toast always falls butter side down. So, therefore, tape a bit of buttered toast to a cat’s back and flip him toward the floor, and you’ll have an inexhaustible source of power.

So we find Boortz, yesterday, commenting on the supposed sub-prime crisis:

While walking through a Hispanic neighborhood in Las Vegas last week Clinton said that unscrupulous lending leads to bad mortgages which, in thru, lead to foreclosures which lead to people with nowhere to go.

Do you notice how the left is trying to paint this mortgage crisis on the lenders? It’s all about crooked or unscrupulous or greedy mortgage lenders and brokers.

It happens that when many of these substandard loans were being made by these “unscrupulous” lenders I wasn’t that far away from making my living practicing law and was doing quite a few real estate closings. I can remember a series of articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about redlining and all of the horrible, racist things evil mortgage lenders do to avoid making loans to blacks and low income people. The pressure was clearly on. Either the mortgage lenders start to do something creative to bring more low income types and minorities into the realm of home ownership, or the government was going to step in and make them do it. What did we get? Substandard mortgages. The left was out there whining that the mortgage companies weren’t doing enough … so here come the loans who otherwise couldn’t have qualified … and now we haver the mortgage crunch and record foreclosures.

When the marketplace gets screwed up, always look for the hand of government somewhere.

True enough. But here we go. Blame the banks. Anything but blame the original culprit… government… particularly, a liberal headed government, which put leftist dogma into practice. But looking to the banks we find former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Ruben, who now heads Citibank, taking an 18.1 billion dollar writedown, with an estimated 24,000 losing their jobs.

CNBC:

Citigroup plans to announce a writedown of as much as $24 billion and layoffs that could total as much as 24,000 due to subprime and credit-related losses, CNBC has learned.

The plans will be unveiled Tuesday by Citigroup’s new CEO, Vikram S. Pandit, after the banking giant reports fourth-quarter earnings. At the same time, Citigroup could also announce that it is cutting its dividend payment by as much as 50 percent.

Citigroup is likely to cut between 17,000 and 24,000 positions over the course of the year through a combination of layoffs, attrition and selling off businesses as part of Pandit’s cost-cutting plan, sources said. Previously, it was estimated that the layoffs could reach 20,000.

The problem? Sub prime loans. The reason Citi got so heavily into Sub-Prime marketing? Robert Ruben, and his ties to the leftist world, his leftist convictions, and his putting the Clinton policies into action.  All in the name of ‘Equal opportunity” of course.

Interesting; Will the banker get the blame in this case? Apparently not. Damned few of the stories tracking this business even mention Ruben. So the usual ‘blame business’ trick won’t be applied here because a full-goose bozo liberal was running the place. Can’t blame government either. And so we see that cat flipping and turning at supersonic speed.

More interesting yet; What apparently pushed Citi into making this very public move was China and their government owned banks deciding not to buy up Citi Capital, thus bailing Citi out. Funny, how a Clintonite goes to China. Something about Karma, here that they turned him down.

Watch; we’ll see an effort on the part of the left to blame the whole thing of GWB.  It’s the only trick they’ve got left for this one.

Yesterday, I posted the unmatchable Rush Limbaugh describe the state of the democrat house divided.   Today, I offer Mark R. Levin describing the state of the conservative  house and, “Why were are conservatives.”

Mark is a lover of dogs and I liken him to a pit bull.   He just sinks his teeth in and  bites. 

Hat Tip: Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review.

Jawa Report;

 Saudi Arabia isn’t cracking down on Islamic extremism, they invented it, for God’s sake. Mecca and Medina aren’t located in Guam, last I checked.

But does that extremism of itself prove Saudi GOVERNMENT involvement? No… any more than  a few ‘Peace at all costs” whack jobs  represent OUR government. You’re painting with far too broad a brush,  Vinnie.

I can’t imagine that she figured on this:

 NEW YORK, N.Y. —The Politico- Dogged by continuing racial tensions around her presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a smattering of boos on Monday when she spoke at a religiously tinged Martin Luther King Jr. rally put together by a union organizing predominantly black security workers.

The catcalls came when Clinton was introduced and her speech drew only tepid applause compared to the boisterous ovations drawn by many of the pastors and reverends — not to mention a hip-hop artist and slam poet — who took the podium before her.

Look, bogus or not, this race card thing was one she started toying with, and it jumped up and bit her.  She’s paying the price now.  In her defense I will say that this is the result of the pander-bear politics the Democrats as a whole and the Clintons in particular have been waging for decades, now.  The current situation smacks to me of a certain level of justice, thereby.

There’s this, too; I cannot believe she didn’t understand that those kind of politics would eventually backfire. The unique tone-deafness she’s demonstrated here would seem to negate any other qualifications she might have for the office… which in our opinion were slim to begin with.

I suppose we can take all of this as an indication of how she’ll do in Michigan.

Addendum:  (David L)

Mrs. Clinton has a problem.  He is called B.J..   Mrs. Clinton is not a strong enough candidate to run without B.J. but having B.J. campaign in an already polarized election is like bringing Al Sharpton to an anti-crime rally.    The more B.J. talks, the deeper he digs the hole for Mrs. Clinton.

Those of you familiar with details of Ezra Levant’s battle with Canadian fascists. may recognize Syed Soharwardy as the Muslim bigot with neither the understanding of, or regard for, Free Speech. Soharwardy has found a brother in arms south of the border in Dennis Kucinich, who in turn has found his own private version of Shirlene McGovern in one Judge Charles Thompson, who has dared to order MSNBC who the network must include.

Levant had the courage to tell McGovern that he would not submit and told her to shove it, in a rather polite manner. Will MSNBC show they have the courage of a lone blogger and tell Thompson, in a polite manner, to shove it. If MSNBC has the balls of a sparrow, they would have Kucinich arrested for trespassing if he set foot on their property without their invitation.

If MSNBC had a least modicum of courage they ask all candidates their opinion on Free Speech. A pox on the house of MSNBC if they submit to this vile order of a tyrannical judge.

The fact that Kuchinich has the same respect for, and understanding of Free Speech, as does Soharwardy is all you really need to know about him as a candidate. A pox on Kuchinich as well.

More, Memeorandum.

Addendum I:  (David L)

MSNBC has filed an appeal,  Sabrina Eaton, Cleveland.com:

The NBC television network has asked Nevada’s Supreme Court to overturn a Clark County District Court judge’s decision that Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich must be allowed to participate in tonight’s debate for Democratic presidential candidates.

In documents filed at the court this morning, the network asserted that it decided on Jan. 10 to change its debate participation criteria, and require that candidates have finished in the top three in either the Iowa Caucus or the New Hampshire Primary

[…]

In issuing his decision yesterday, Thompson said he was “somewhat offended that a legitimate candidate was invited to a debate and then uninvited.”

“If the criteria were established from the beginning that we’d only take the top three for the debates, I wouldn’t have any problem enforcing that,” Thompson said from the bench. “On the other hand, if the criteria was one set of rules and you changed the rules in the middle of the game to exclude somebody after having invited them, I’m offended by that

Funny, no legal rational for the decision was attributd to the State of Nevada.   Rather Thompson said he felt “offended.”   Have we became another Canada, where any thing which offends a judge is deemed illegal?

Addendum II: 

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment still was in effect in Nevada,  Brian Stelter, New York Times:

MSNBC had no immediate comment on the ruling. It will likely be described as a First Amendment victory by the news organization, as lawyers for NBC had argued that it had a right, as a privately owned network, to determine whom to invite to the debate. The network changed the criteria for participation in the debate after other candidates dropped out of the Democratic race for president last week.

A win for Free Speech and the Times is naturally disappointed.

The unmatched Rush Limbaugh on a roll. All time great monologue.

Part one:

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Part two:

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Devastating. 

Hat Tip:  Bryan, Hot Air.

• First things first: An Honorable Mention at the OTB Caption Contest.
• I’ve noticed that Memeorandum thinks we have a heartbeat again. I’m not at all sure what caused them to hang up on us, but I’m glad we’re back on speaking terms, whatever the reason. I just wish we had a clearer picture of what drives their actions there.
• That plugin issue I found earlier was really three things; Two plugs fighting with each other… and even there it’d have been OK if I hadn’t altered the PHP a year ago to solve a few display problems. Ah, well, it’s a learning thing. By the way, I’m still fooling with new designs. Haven’t found one I like better than what we have, yet. I’d like one that’s Widget ready, if nothing else.
• Jawa has a transcript of the Fred Thompson presser/blogger the other day. I’ve been busy with design issues and building a server so I didn’t see it.
• Glenn makes note of a movement in Nevada which calls for people to become Democrats for a day just to vote against Hillary Clinton. My attitude? Why the hell not? Wasn’t Kos trying to pull the same nonsense going the other way in Michigan?  And what do you folks figure Ron Paul’s candidacy is all about, if not fouling the Republican primary process?
• In response to some back and forth over the tax rates vs Economy post; Look, the bottom line is he’s been arguing against Supply Side Economics for years, now, and not very convincingly.  He questions he’s asking now can only be made if… if…. you make the assumption that Supply side doesn’t work, and that tax hikes don’t damage economic growth. As I said over there, “I think it fair to say that tax hikes invariably damage the economy to at least some small amount”.

In order to win the nomination, Mrs. Clinton needs the black vote.  Her husband, B.J. Clinton, seems bounded and determined to insure that Mrs. Clinton does not get that vote.   Josh Gerstein, Sun(NY) “Clinton Does More Damage Control on Black Radio:”

In an interview Monday, President Clinton mounted a less-than-vigorous defense of comments a prominent supporter of Senator Clinton’s presidential bid, Robert Johnson, made which many interpreted as a reference to Senator Obama’s admission of drug use during his younger years 

[…]

A series of callers to Mr. Martin’s program following Mr. Clinton’s call were deeply skeptical of his explanation and harshly critical of Mr. Johnson. One even doubted the former president’s statement that he hadn’t heard Mr. Johnson’s comments, since the words were read to him on another program earlier in the day. Mr. Martin said Mr. Clinton seemed to be saying he had not previously heard the tape of the comments. It took more than an hour to hear a caller defend Mr. Clinton, even tangentially

Obviously, Karl Rove has recruited B.J. Clinton as his secret weapon to defeat Mrs. Clinton.

Hat Tip:  Memeorandum.

Jeff Quinton over at Inside Charm City:

A former MVA worker from Beltsville was sentenced to 40 months today for selling identification to illegals.

From the DoJ press release:

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
AUSA VICKIE E. LEDUC or
MARCIA MURPHY at 410-209-4885
JANUARY 7, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/md

FORMER MVA EMPLOYEE SENTENCED FOR UNLAWFULLY ISSUING OVER 150 MARYLAND IDENTIFICATION CARDS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS

Greenbelt, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte sentenced former Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) employee James Edwin Harrell, age 51, of Beltsville, Maryland today to 40 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for producing and transferring unlawfully produced identification documents, in particular Maryland Identification Cards issued by the MVA, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein stated, “James Harrell sold his government job at the MVA for profit when he unlawfully issued Maryland identification documents on over 150 occasions during the course of many months. His actions betrayed the trust the MVA placed in his hands.”

“Today’s sentencing demonstrates our resolve to pursue those individuals who produce and distribute fraudulent identity and employment documents,” said James A. Dinkins, Special Agent in Charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Baltimore. “ICE will continue working with our law enforcement partners to address criminal actions that pose a threat to our public safety.”

According to the plea agreement and evidence presented at today’s hearing, Harrell worked at the Beltsville Branch of the MVA where he issued driver’s licenses and identification cards. From May 2004 to February 2005, Harrell used his position at MVA to meet with applicants, many of whom were illegal aliens, who wanted to obtain Maryland Identification Cards, learner’s permits or driver’s licenses, but did not have the necessary documentation to legally obtain such identity documents. In return for payment, Harrell assisted these applicants in obtaining over 150 unlawfully produced identification cards.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Internal Investigations Section of the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration Investigation and Security Services Division, for their investigative work. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry M. Gruber, who prosecuted the case.

Yes Virginia, there are those who love money more than their country.