We need a warrior

  Allen West said something quite sensible this morning; he said the Republican party and conservatives need to get rid of the "entitlement" mentality as far as candidates go. 
  This is true. When election time rolls around, the same old white guys get nominated, the next guy standing in line. 
  Oh, Bob Dole? He's been waiting in line for a long time so he's next. 
  Clinton also beat George H.W. Bush with the motto "It's the economy, stupid!"
  Now we have a bunch of wimpy guys standing in line, some dropping by the wayside, to see if it's THEIR turn to run for the presidency under the Republican ticket. 
  We have a president who seems to take golf more seriously than his job, as he hits the course the 8th weekend in a row and the 11th time this year and the 69th time of his presidency. WH Dossier.
  We have an economy which sucks big time, high unemployment, general unrest and a not too great outlook for the future as the administration prosecutes the wrong people, supports unions in bilking the public, and calls  screwing our allies a little disagreement among friends.
  I don't agree with Krauthammer, who calls Herman Cain's run "entertainment," but he's right on this statement to liberal Mark Shields, recorded at Newsbusters: CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: See, what Mark wants is a Republican nominee who is a squish and then he’ll vote against him anyway.
  We have to face the fact that establishment Republicans suck.
  They enjoy the irresponsibility and laziness of the perks of being a minority. They're threatened by the tea parties because that would require CHANGE of attitude.
  Chris Wallace said today this is an unusual year. People aren't as willing to settle for the traditional as they have been, which is a hallmark of being conservative. You know, provincial, go along, say nothing.
  And, hey.
  It's the economy, stupid.

Sarah Palin Moving To Arizona?

Sarah Palin is rumored to have purchased an 8000 square foot home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Azcentral.com reports that the secluded property was purchased by Safari Investments LLC a Delaware corporation.
High-profile people frequently buy homes through LLCs to maintain their privacy.

Mitch Daniels Is Out!

The New York times is reporting that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has announced that he will not enter the Republican primary. Daniels, a popular governor and former director of the budget under George W. Bush cited " The interests and wishes of my family" as the obstacle to his bid for the presidency.

ROE stricter in Iraq than Arizona? WHY?

  Question: Why are the rules of engagement stricter in Iraq and Afghanistan where our soldiers have to sidestep IEDs, hostile fire, snipers, squealers and terrorists than they are in Arizona?
  Sheriff Dupnik, who excoriated conservatives and radio hosts for their free speech after the Giffords shooting and declared that a "new tone" was necessary to reset boundaries, defends the actions of a SWAT that shot a Marine veteran SIXTY times as he stood in his home, wondering why the SWAT team was on his doorstep.
  KGUN9:

The search warrants remain sealed, but Sheriff Clarence Dupnik did open up. The Sheriff's office released a statementWednesday, calling out the media's "irresponsibility" in asking questions about this case, saying "it is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a cover-up."

  So people are irresponsible for asking why this veteran had to be shot SIXTY times and Dupnik thinks you shouldn't be doing that.
  Now we know the Marine's safety was on and he couldn't have fired.
  Perhaps Sheriff Dupnik needs to remember that this is STILL the United States of America.

Pat Condell on the Death of Osama bin Laden

Ann Coulter Tweets

Bum Luck

Just when you think you've got things going your way some damn fool pops your bubble. Fate can be cruel and so can the Michigan Department of Human Services. Leroy Flick of Bay City, Michigan had won $2 million in the Michigan "Make Me Rich" lottery and then his luck ran out. It seems the DHS wants to cut off his food stamps. Mr. Flick defends his continued use of food stamps because the government took half his winning in taxes. One might wonder if the government paid for the winning lottery ticket also.

bin Laden's burial at sea caught on tape

Ditch Mitch? Not Yet

Conventional wisdom holds that all the first string Republicans have too much baggage ergo it essential that Mitch Daniels enter the primary and provide the voters with a clean and unsullied choice. So far not much has surfaced in the way of scandal that would impede Daniels other than his wife, Cheri, taking a three year sabbatical from their marriage. Waiting for Daniels to enter the race are scores of questions about his tenure at Indianapolis based drug maker Eli Lilly. While he was serving as a senior executive, Lilly pleaded guilty to two criminal misdemeanors and paid $2.7 billion in fines and settled 32,000 personal injury law suits. No one person makes a decision either scientific or legal in a company the size of Lilly and these sort of legal problems have plagued the drug industry and Daniels may have had no knowledge of any wrong doing but it is a little much to say Daniels has no baggage.

Elsewhere in Indiana Senator Lugar's aide's have claimed that some people have been duped into supporting Richard Mourdock, Lugar's Tea Party backed opponent. Those people who have been duped in to backing Mourdock? They would be 67 of 92 Republican county chairmen.

Obama's health care mess

  By now you've seen the ridiculous new ad claiming Paul Ryan's budget bill will put wheelchair granny on a path toward a cliff, where the wheeler of the chair dumps her off.
  This is typical deflecting of responsibility by big government liberals. 
  They continue to insist that the "death panels" are fictional, even though the panel already exists that will decide who gets what treatment under obamacare. And even though the president's advisor has recommended that the very young and the old (60 and above) be denied treatment because of the expense.
  IOW, we're going to save money by denying treatment to people whose lives aren't worth as much, as the government determines worth. Of course, government luminaries would be exempt from the same requirements.
  Powerline has an excellent article this morning about the Dems' lack of passing a budget, about their determination to destroy Medicare as we know it, and their attempt to stop any attempt to save it.
  Powerline:

 The Democrats intend to use the collapse of Medicare as part of the overall destruction of our health care system, so that the only apparent alternative is socialized medicine. That, plus they think that demagoguing the issue will help them in 2012 as it has in prior elections.

But it is hard for the Democrats to articulate their real policy with regard to Medicare. For political reasons, they have to pretend that the program in its present form is viable, even though they know perfectly well that it isn't. This is, I think, the central reason why the Democrats cannot come up with a budget. Any honest budget would have to either 1) cut Medicare spending, or 2) raise taxes on all taxpayers by an astonishing amount, or 3) project horrific deficits, forever. The Democrats prefer not to face this reality, but rather to pin their electoral prospects on an appeal to the ignorant.

  Here's the ridiculous commercial:


  This is what we're reduced to. This is what represents logic by the left.

Obama's foreign policy mess

  The desertion of Israel is execrable. How is it that the leader of the "free" world has taken the positions he has? How can he be on the wrong side so many times?
  Youth in Egypt and Iran cry out, "Obama, where are you?" to no answer for months only to have Obama desert Mubarak, which caused ripples of shock in Israel. Reuters:

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness.

  Then our military is utilized in an incursion into Libya, whose dictator was the only one to give up his nukes. We're bombing that country now, trying to kill a bad dude who will probably be replaced by an even badder dude or dudes.
  Today the War Powers Act requires that Obama seek approval from Congress after 60 days of using troops, which is today. Though there's argument over how constitutional the WPA is, certainly the unconstitutionality of something has never stopped politicians before. Meh. A law's a law and only the little people have to follow the law. We'll see what the administration does about that today.
  But back to Israel. 
  Why are we rewarding suicide bombers with more land and money? Don't these actions just reinforce this bad behavior? 
  Obama's actions would reduce Israel to 8 miles wide in the middle of the country. Eight miles away from people who cut the throats of babies.
  How much wailing took place when Israel just put a WALL up to prevent the suicide bombers from crossing over to blow up buses and businesses?
  So The Anointed One rewards suicide bombers with money and land and gives an ipod with his best speeches on it to our allies, while snubbing them politically and socially.
  Let's recap.
  Barack Hussein Obama, who couldn't be bothered to produced a birth certificate for 3 years, wins a Nobel Peace Prize within 3 weeks of gaining office.
  This Man of Peace is concurrently bombing 3 countries, assassinates a (terrorist) citizen of another country and parades about the country bragging about it and revealing top secret information about the assassination, even while fixing his gun sights on another Arab leader.
  He ignores the cries of democracy lovers, yet responds to suicide bombers by promising them American money, even while the country struggles to pay its own bills.
  How much worse can this get.
  Wait. Forget I said that.

UGH-now the light bulbs

  Having watched some commie on Cavuto tonight ranting about getting rid of McDonald's altogether because everything they sell (apparently including the Apple "fries" and the salads) is so awful that people will DIE if they eat it, now the truth comes out about CFL lightbulbs.
  We knew that were hazardous and had to be disposed of correctly if broken. No vacuum cleaner, no sweeping. No trash can.
  But now we learn that they are also FIRE HAZARDS.
  Read the article and see the links at American Thinker:

Statists believe government can determine people's economic interactions better than the people themselves.  In short, they believe government economic planning is superior to the free market. Politicians are always looking for ways to demonstrate this to justify the statist ideological conviction and retain the political power to force it on the public.  From low-flow toilets to ethanol subsidies and mandates, to creating the housing bubble that collapsed (taking the rest of the economy with it), and everything in between, they have a consistent record of failure.  Now it's CFLs.  People are being forced to switch from a reliable, economical, environmentally safe product to one which is none of these -- and a health and safety hazard to boot.

An End To OPEC

From time to time we will write more about oil shale and shale gas. The world is not running out of energy. Far from it. This energy will take decades to develope. The United States will be a major player both in the production of its own oil and natural gas but also the manufacturing of the drilling and fracking machinery. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the world wide distribution of natural gas and it is indeed world wide with China possibly having more natural gas than the United States. Our children, if not us, will see the end of OPEC! Soon the United States will be an exporter of natural gas. The "green energy revolution" which we hear so much about but strangely never see will fade into irreverence. Not surprisingly the political class is so far behind the curve on this new energy that they think they're first, but the new Senator from North Dakota, John Hoeven, is a welcome exception. This guy knows banking and he knows energy. There are currently 165 drilling rigs working in North Dakota.

The discoveries of the shale oil and gas reserves is not recent. For years the oil industry has known of the Bakken ,Marcellus ,and Haynesville shale formations but it did not know how to extract the gas and oil until the advent of "fracking". Hydraulic fracturing the, formal term for "fracking" might be the greatest innovation since the world wide web. It would be nice if we would see informative videos like those below on television commercials instead of the drippy renewable drivel put forth by Chevron and friends. When viewing these videos try to think in three dimensions. Not just a single line on a plane but 6 lines running in all directions and joined into one well head.

GOP: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

The question is not whether or not the Democrats will lose control of the Senate but rather how badly they will lose. A visit to Democratic pollster, Charlie Cook's web site ought to give loyal Democrats sharp abdominal pain. Yep, it's down right gut wrenching! The Democrats must defend 23 seats while the Republicans need only defend 12. Four Democratic Senators-three of whom voted for Obamacare have had a "come to Jesus" moment. Those Senators would be McCaskill, Tester, Manchin and Ben Nelson. Legal Insurrection has a video featuring Senator Nelson having an apparent change of heart the likes of which the western world hasn't seen since Paul on the road to Damascus. Even if the individual mandates are constitutional they are damned unpopular and unpopular people lose elections. Chris Stirewalt, over at Foxnews, identifies eight especially vulnerable seats.

Kagan helped shape defense for Obamacare

  Could we possibly expect our Supreme Court nominees (and eventual justices) to be forthcoming and honest with regard to their previous work product? At all?
  Now it comes to light that Kagan indeed helped create a defense for the health care law the administration shoved down our throats. From The Daily Caller:

Specifically, the documents show that Kagan was involved with crafting the legal defense of the Affordable Care Act in her role as solicitor general, before her appointment to the bench. The Media Research Center and Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that was filed in February 2011

  Later in the DC article, it is revealed that:

Kagan’s response: “This needs to be coordinated. Tracy you should not say anything about this before talking to me.”

Other email chains between Kagan, White House lawyers and Vice President Joe Biden’s then-Chief of Staff Ronald Klain show a coordinated effort on how to respond to questions about the health-care law that may have arisen in the confirmation hearings.

  Now why do "we" need to "coordinate" our responses if we are telling the truth? Isn't the truth what happened, rather than what we coordinate as a response?

Stick A Fork In Him-He's Done

Rick Tyler, Newt Gingrich's press secretary wrote: " The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding.” If we are to believe Newt and his disciple we are all victims of a horrendous spin campaign launched by the Washington establishment. Here's catch. It is not the Washington establishment that wants Newt's scalp. It's the great unwashed public. The hell is emanating from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin and the blogosphere. Literati? minions? Hell, here at Tea Party@Perrysburg we have to cut the deck to see who is the literati who is the minion. And where would we find Rick Tyler's defense of Newt? The Huffington Post. Oh yes, every Tea Partyer's must read web site.

Come on! Give us a break. Don't tell us what we all heard Mr. Gingrich say is not what he said. We have endured this prattle far too long, and frankly, we are quite tired of it. We are offended by it. We are adults. Next we'll hear Mr. and Mrs. Gingrich got themselves on the hook for $500,000 to Tiffany's because of shoddy lending practices. Half a million in installment debt? Not bad for a fiscal conservative. As the man from Iowa, presumably a minion of the literati, asked, "Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself?"

Baby coded language reveals true motives

  The man shifted his 300 lb frame in the chair uncomfortably, which squeaked and groaned under his weight. He sucked the smoke from the cigar as a tiny tear slid down his cheek, which had grown flush as the reporter queried him about the nature of his government funded alternative lifestyle. "Yeah, well," he growled, his voice guttural and rough as he bit the end of the cigar in agitation and spit it out on the carpet. "You donno what I go through. I got nothin' ta live for but dat crib and high chair. Oh, and my legos. I couldn't live widdout my legos."
  Washington Times

“You wanna test how damn serious I am about leaving this world, screw with my check that pays for this apartment and food. Try it. See how serious I am. I don’t care,” the California man said. “I have no problem killing myself. Take away the last thing keeping me here, and see what happens. Next time you see me on the news, it will be me in a body bag.”

  DLTDHYOTWO
  From his website:

I don't know about you, but I hate wearing just ordinary institutional peach color diapers. I like to give mine a style. I can personalize them with my name. I can make a statement.  Drive a bus, drive a big rig, drive a train, why not put a picture of your favorite thing you like to drive on your diaper? The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. We will print anything as long as it's not copy right (for example things from Disney like Mickey Mouse or Barney). Has to be something that's yours like something you drew or a picture of something that's yours such as your car or something.

Getcher mitts off my taters

  Whatsa guy to do? 
  All we hear these days is "This is bad for you...DON'T" and "We'd like you to change your...." and "Bend over."
  Reason magazine has a perspective on this administration's war on fun; viz., smoking, alcohol, poker and food.
  Personally I don't do much of three (well, maybe two) of the above but I'm pretty outraged by the latter.
  I gots to have me my salt shaker. There's always one nearby.
  The other thing I gots to have is my potatoes. 
  Mashed. Fried. Twice baked. Once baked. Cheesy. Garlicky. Casserole. Skilleted. Souped. Pattied. Even broccolied.
  Mmmmm. Taters. Nature's treat. 
  A slap of real butter on my mashed, peppered and salted. A slice o' cheese and a few onions on my baked with a few crunchy bacon bits. A dollop of sour cream on the side, with a smattering of chives. The smell of fried potatoes and onions wafting through the house on a winter morning. 
  So for some reason Queen Michelle has set her sights on my taters. She prefers sweet potatoes, which I find disgusting. 
  The WSJ explains the offenses of potatoes:

The proposed change is part of a push to make school meals healthier, with more nutrient-rich vegetables and fewer French fries. Under the USDA proposal, school cafeterias would have to limit starchy vegetables such as potatoes, corn, peas and lima beans to a total of one cup per week for lunch.

  Soooo...on the hit list....white flour, soda, cookies, pizza, potatoes, corn, peas, lima beans....and we're so happy to know that the government has installed software at the taxpayers' expense of $2 million to watch what they put on and leave on their plates. 
  Fortunately this will only take place in schools, not yet on our personal plates at home, although the fact that some doctors are refusing to see any patient who weighs more than 200 pounds may influence some food choices.
  Government officials can do a lot of things that influence our lives without rousing our ire, particularly the ire of kids, who generally let adults behave as they will without protest. 
  But reaching into the cafeteria lunch line to take away taters, cookies, stuff they'll actually eat, no matter how fat or not fat the child is goes too far. There WILL be a price to pay for that. 
  Like taking candy from a baby, huh.
  You thought it was that easy. Don't be surprised if that comes back on ya, Michelle.
  Back. On. Ya.

The Class Act?

Looper Report (Washington)

Following the arrest of IMF Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn the Obama administration proposed strict new regulation of the hotel industry. Senator Charles Schumer (D New York) noted the arrest was the latest in a long and sad string of failures of the hotel industry to protect its guests from untoward publicity and legal jeopardy. "It is remarkable that Elliot Spitzer, John Edwards, and Al Gore have all suffered career ending denouements in hotel rooms. It is also remarkable that they are all Democrats," spoke the affable but angry senator. Although he did not say it, Schumer hinted at the presence of a vast right wing conspiracy. Under the proposed regulations hotels would be required to disclose all political donations made by the companies and their employees.

Snooze Along With Mitch

Jennifer Rubin has a great post on Mitch Daniels today. While he may be the darling of the beltway crowd, I have watched his career up close for eight years and frankly he has one great draw back. This man is dull. Deadly dull! He has been an above average governor but the same could be said of Evan Bayh. On the state level there is one small impediment in a Daniels campaign that may or may not cause trouble. Senator Dick Lugar is facing a primary challenge from Secretary of State Richard Mourdock. (Full disclosure- I have volunteered to work for Mourdock) Before the primary Daniels must decide whether he will back Lugar or Mourdock and that could be tricky.

For those of us who remember our discomfort with the somnambulant pre-Palin McCain campaign; a Daniels campaign would be deja vu. Yes, I know he sounds exciting when Bill Kristol expounds his positives but there is a world of difference between running for office in Indiana and running in a national campaign. Dan Quayle was much admired in Indiana as a Senator but when he was subjected to the scrutiny of the national press corp he became a liability to Bush's ticket.

The Republican party should avoid getting caught up in the balanced budget argument to the extent that it does not articulate the essential prerequisite of balanced budget which is economic growth. Robust economic growth solves a lot budget problems and forgives a lot fiscal missteps. Sarah Palin vaguely hints at it when she talks about getting the government out of the way and unleashing free enterprise but she doesn't go far enough. Mitch Daniels, I'm afraid, would view and present to the voters the idea that balancing the budget is some sort of an arcane accounting exercise and that would be dull!