Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Quick Hits - March 7, 2012

A busy day with lots of topics to cover, so let's dive right on in...


Andrew Breitbart's funeral was yesterday - Ace from Ace of Spades notes that it was kept quiet to prevent any disruptions. 

His legacy will be powerful - just as he was in life.  Remember, our task is to carry on and be the warrior he was.

Information on the above poster is at this link - as is the image of the bumper sticker.  T-Shirts are being made with the image as well - order one here...



Super Tuesday...

Mitt Romney captured wins in 6 of the 10 Super Tuesday contests, winning in Virginia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Idaho, Alaska, and by 1 point in a close contest, Ohio.

Rick Santorum won in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Dakota.

Newt Gingrich only won in his home state, Georgia, and failed to finish better than third in any of the other contests.

Ron Paul failed to win in any of the contests and finished second in Vermont, Virginia (only he and Romney were on the ballot), and North Dakota.

The meme of the mainstream media is towards downplaying Mitt Romney's win in 6 of the contests - The Hill focuses on 'Romney Narrowly Wins Critical Ohio Primary' - and the WSJ news section, and other MSM elements are noting that the less than dominant performance by Romney means that the GOP primary race will continue into April and May.  They cite Democrats who believe that the ongoing battle between Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich is a sign of massive turmoil in the GOP and ultimately an electoral disaster for the GOP come November.

As is par for the course, the MSM is busy trying to define its own agenda as opposed to reporting factually.  The rules established by the GOP for this primary season, particularly around the focus towards proportional allotments of delegates from the early primaries were designed to promote a longer primary process and more 'vetting' of the GOP nomination candidates.

Furthermore, the MSM is also hard at work discounting the likelihood that conservative (and many independent) voters will unify behind whichever GOP candidate emerges with the nomination just as they unified behind Ronald Reagan in 1980 to defeat the incumbent President, Jimmy Carter.

The GOP nomination process is not over, but Mitt Romney has taken another huge step towards gaining the nomination with the results from last night.  He overcame a double digit Santorum lead in Ohio in mid-February to win by a point in a close contest last night.  He also gains the lion's share of delegates in Ohio. 

Romney has, according to RealClearPolitics, 404 delegates in his column...and a majority of all delegates awarded thusfar.  Rick Santorum has gained 161 delegates, Newt Gingrich 105, and Ron Paul, only 61 delegates.  This is a large lead for Romney and may be insurmountable.  Despite the meme, Romney moved a lot closer to locking down the nomination last night.

Seeing some of this, the Santorum camp and backers renewed their demands that Newt Gingrich drop out of the nomination race so that conservatives can unify behind Rick Santorum.

The GOP primary race wasn't the only story coming out of the Super Tuesday contests.

In Ohio, hard left progressive Congressman Dennis Kucinich lost to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in a Democrat primary for the redistricted Ohio which combined the districts of Kucinich and Kaptur.  Kucinich, fiercely anti-war and very progressive, is now done in Congress.  Hit hardest by this are the pundits on MSNBC...
"That's amazing," a shocked Rachel Maddow reacted to the news that Dennis Kucinich lost his primary race on Super Tuesday. Kucinich lost his district after Ohio redrew their Congressional lines, leaving him to run in a nearby district against an incumbent Democrat.

"That means that there's not going to be a Dennis Kucinich in Congress anymore, which is almost hard to believe. He has been a singular force for his, not only for his ideological position but he's just been such a character," Maddow lamented.

"He was the dependable guy with the progressive community. He'll be missed," Al Sharpton said.

"He's a guy that you could always count on when it came to a universal healthcare conversation, or when it came to getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and also middle-class issues and also he was good on labor," Ed Schultz said.

Kucinich wasn't just popular with the MSNBC crowd as Chris Matthews will note.

"Dennis is very popular in these circles, in media circles. We all know him," the "Hardball" host revealed.
President Obama also got some news from Super Tuesday that should be raising concerns for his re-election efforts.  First, exit polls from the Super Tuesday states show that gasoline prices and the continued economic challenges are major issues for the voters casting their ballots.  If voters are focusing on these items - the President's record is not going to help him any in the fall or with independents.

In Oklahoma, President Obama was also challenged in the Democrat primary.  This was the first challenge to his drive for the Democrat nomination in this primary season.  He only won 57% of the vote in the state's Democrat primary - with three local challengers splitting the rest.



The Fluke, Limbaugh, Contraception kerfuffle continues to get considerable attention.  Not surprisingly, one of the questions asked of President Obama in his press conference yesterday was about the kerfuffle - which allowed the President to continue to redirect the issue from one of freedom to the supposed conservative 'war on women'. 

The President, in his answer, noted that 'I don't like to see private citizens insulted for speaking out..' which is laughable in its hypocrisy.  As Allahpundit notes at Hot Air...
fingerpointing over the Tucson shooting, and most recently the high-fiving on Twitter over Breitbart’s death, it’s increasingly difficult to blog about these sporadic “civility” lectures. What’s left to say? They’re frauds. They care about “tone” precisely to the extent that it can be exploited to electoral advantage and no further. To write about it even to dump on them for it is to give them more credit than they deserve. Any questions?
Note the exchange at the very end here, too. If you can’t decipher all of it, John McCormack has a transcript. Turns out when O’s asked to critique right-wing rhetoric, he can muster a few thoughts, but when it comes time to weigh in on the “war on women” schtick being pushed by Debbie “New Tone” Wasserman-Schultz, suddenly he’s not in the business of arbitrating. Again, any questions?
Bob Beckel, the progressive blowhard pontificator on FNC's 'The Five' was giddy yesterday on the program as this was brought up for discussion.  He is convinced that this is a winning strategy for Obama and the Democrats over the conservatives and GOP.  He believes that the majority of women in the US see the GOP as being against women's rights - and is completely, utterly, and thoroughly full of shat.  Of course, being who he is, he's going to want to help move the ball down that line and promote the misdirection meme...

I give middle America, and the women of middle America, more credit than the chattering elitist progressives.  They see the theater.  They see the misdirection.  They see the argument is that our rights, and the rights of religious organizations which are protected by the US Constitution are being subverted in favor of the rights of activists like Sandra Fluke.  I think these progressive pundits underestimate the power and reach of conservative talk radio or pundits like Bill O'Reilly on Fox News (and it's dominant ratings) highlighting the hypocrisy, theater, and misdirection.

Michelle Malkin, a long time target of the progressive war on conservative women, writes of this war in her column today...
Or when MSNBC misogynist Ed Schultz called talk show host Laura Ingraham a “talk slut” for criticizing Obama’s petty beer summit. Or when Playboy published a list of the top 10 conservative women who deserved to be “hate-f**ked.” The article, which was promoted by Anne Schroeder Mullins at Politico.com, included Ingraham, “The View’s” Elisabeth Hasselbeck, former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann and others. Yours truly topped the list with the following description: a “highly f**kable Filipina” and “a regular on Fox News, where her tight body and get-off-my-lawn stare just scream, ‘Do me!’”

And then there’s the left’s war on Sarah Palin, which would require an entire national forest of trees to publish.

The war on Rush Limbaugh's advertisers is also continuing as several additional advertisers have announced they've stopped advertising on his radio program. One of these is Capital One - who has misogynist progressive Alec Baldwin as their spokesperson.

Carbonite is seeing more backlash from their decision to drop advertising on the Limbaugh program - and their continued support of the loathsome Ed Schultz not to mention their CEO's support and contributions towards MoveOn.Org...as their stock price has plummeted even more since their decision.

Actions have ramifications.

President Obama's first press conference for 2012 was most notable for the questions that were not asked of the President by the WH Press Corps.  Where were the questions about the national economy?  The skyrocketing national debt?  The unemployment levels in this country - and specifically the massive decline in the labor participation rate which is at the lowest level since 1983?  We're in the midst of the slowest economic recovery in the post-war era - and why hasn't the Administration been able to get a viable recovery going where they do not have to play with the numbers to create the perception of a recovery?

Only Fox News Senior WH Correspondent Ed Henry came close to addressing one of these questions when he asked about the soaring gasoline prices.  Even in this, the President basically punted on his answer.  Rather than addressing this pressing issue impacting Americans, the President instead focused on how this impacts him and his re-election effort.  He did nothing to address the repeated comments made by his Energy Secretary that the Administration's primary goal is not to reduce gas prices - but to promote conservation and alternative energy even if the latter is not viable.  Also left unmentioned Keystone XL, the declining oil and gas production on federal lands, the addition of more regulatory hurdles on domestic energy production.

Reports are that the Administration is contemplating releasing crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to add supply to try to stop soaring gas prices.  This was done in 2008 by the Bush Administration and did contribute to lowering prices.  But if additional supplies of oil will drop the prices,then why address this in a very limited and temporary manner via the release of some crude from the SPR?  If the President is so proud of increasing domestic production (increasing on private lands despite his Administration - not because of it), why not expand it even more? 

Ultimately this is just more campaign theater - saying what he thinks the voters want to hear - blame speculators - and do nothing towards increasing our energy independence because that would a) antagonize his progressive environmentalist base, and b) stop him from continuing the practice of crony capitalism re green energy and rewarding his supporters.



The Syrian government, and its allies Iran and Hezbollah are claiming that the opposition is being armed / led by foreign governments.  Some claims point the finger at the US and some Arab countries for providing weapons while others point at the usual bogeymen of Mossad, the CIA, and the US security firm Blackwater.


More than half of the holders of Greek bonds are have so pledged to participate in the government's debt exchange offer - taking a 75% loss on the end value of their investment...
This amount is still well short of the 90% level needed for the restructuring of some €206 billion ($270.1 billion) worth of debt in private-sector hands to be voluntary. But it's very slightly above the 50% quorum required for Greece to initiate procedures to make the deal binding for investors that refuse to take part.
Apple is now holding a special event introducing the iPad HD (what others called the iPad3).  Gizmodo and other tech sites have a rundown on the product...


Michelle Malkin, who founded Hot Air, is launching her newest web site and initiative - Twitchy.com.


Finally, some very sad news in the conservative blogosphere was reported this morning by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit...
Blogger Neptunus Lex has died - More here - He will be missed.

I've linked to Neptunus Lex before on this blog.  My thoughts, prayers, and condolences to his family - he will be missed.

On This Day in History

322 BC - Greek philosopher Aristotle dies

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell receives patent (US Patent No. 174,465) for his telephone.

1933 - The board game Monopoly is invented.

1936 - German troops re-occupy the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact while Britain and France do nothing.

1945 - US ground forces cross the Rhine River over the Remagen Bridge, Remagen Germany.

1975 - The US Senate revises the filibuster rule - cloture now requires only 60 votes as opposed to the previous two-thirds majority.

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