Santorum: 4 More Years Of Obama Better Than Romney

Like I said previously, one of Rick Santorum's weaknesses is that he doesn't handle pressure well.

His latest, in response to a crushing loss in Illinois? That four more years of President Obama would be better than electing Mitt Romney.

“You win by giving people a choice. You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”

Even Newt Gingrich did a double take on that one, tweeting, “Rick Santorum is dead wrong. Any GOP nominee will be better than Obama.”

The Etch A Sketch remark refers to an interview a Romney campaign aide gave on CNN where he made an unfortunate remark to the effect that “everything changes” for the fall campaign. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

If you take the out of context remark to mean that all presidential candidates campaign towards the center once the primaries are over, it's the simple truth but poorly phrased, to say the least.

For Santorum to make statements like this is so far over the top its ridiculous.He obviously never heard of Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment.

For one thing, calling Mitt Romney 'just a little bit different' than President Obama is absolute lunacy, as is speculating that another four years like the ones we've just seen would be anything but disastrous for the country. For another, it's actually Rick Santorum who is a lot closer to President Obama..just from the other side of the spectrum. He's certainly not a conservative.

At this point, all but the diehards are urging him to think about quitting the race. I doubt he will, especially with the Louisiana primary coming up where Louisiana's Catholics can be expected to vote for him and he's favored to win.

Senator Santorum has proven on many levels that he's not ready for prime time. There's no way he can win, and the longer he stays in, the more he helps President Obama's effort for re-election. He needs to put the country ahead of his own ego and get out of the race.

UPDATE: Walkback city...Santorum now has 'clarified' his remarks to say he'll vote for whomever the GOP nominee is against President Obama.Notice he said "vote for" rather than support. Pathetic.

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week's Watcher's Council Results

The Council has spoken, and another Watcher's Council match is history, carved eternally in the akhasic records of cyberspace.

Hey, what's an election without a little voter fraud? This week's winner, Joshuapundit for AG Holder And The DOJ Strike A Blow To Help Voter Fraud examines what's behind the Obama Administration's war on voter photo ID laws and exactly how and why the Democrats absolutely depend on voter fraud and yes, voter suppression to win elections. Here's a slice:

Holder's assault on these laws is pretty simple to explain.President Obama is up for re-election, the Senate is at stake and for the Democrats voter fraud is the only way they have a shot at maintaining and turning out large enough 'majorities' in the large Democrat ruled urban machines like Chicago and Los Angeles to offset votes from other parts of Blue states, 'win' elections and stay in power.

Needless to say, the Democrats and their media allies aren't going to say that. So they cite two seriously flawed arguments to cover for it. The first one is that minorities, people who don't drive, are poor or whom are elderly are somehow discriminated against if they are made to obtain a photo ID.

The truth? A photo ID is free for the asking to the poor in every state, because it's a law in every state of the union that valid ID needs to be presented to any peace officer that asks to see it. In many cases, it's necessary for basic operations like obtaining a library card, opening a bank account or cashing a check at the local market. As for the elderly, most municipalities have transportation available for retirees and the elderly either in the form of taxi coupons, special buses or vans paid for by tax dollars.

Having never been working class themselves for the most part, the elites pushing this don't realize that a lot of people simply aren't interested in voting, or deliberately don't vote to keep themselves off the jury duty rolls to keep from losing a few days work they can ill afford to miss.

The second argument is that the problem of voter fraud is 'minimal', a problem that doesn't exist. There's even a demonstrably cooked 'study' or two to cite. Are they right?

First of all, 'minimal' is a subjective judgment, based on who's counting. For instance, in 2009 there were a total of 13,257 new cases of AIDS originating from heterosexual contact reported in the US. As a percentage of the US population, that works out to about .000043%, something most mathematicians would call negligible. However, the government spends millions of dollars each year promoting the safe sex message and urging condom use, and if you notice, the ads almost always feature heterosexual couples or females, who have an even lower incidence of AIDS from heterosexual contact then do males. Of course, if you or one of your loved ones is part of the statistic, it's tremendously important to you and if you were to ask someone from the Department of Health and Human Services, they'd undoubtedly tell you that even one case is too many and justifies the most stringent methods at prevention.

Since voter fraud is an infection of our democracy, shouldn't we be just as concerned about preventing it?

Actually, the incidents of voter fraud, particularly when it comes to fraudulent registration are rampant and easy to find with a simple internet search. And another item of interest is that the reported instances are a lot lower than they might be simply because elected officials and their appointees charged with enforcing the laws in these matters ( almost always Democrats) frequently refuse to investigate and prosecute.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Bristol Palinasking Mr. President, When Should I Expect Your Call? submitted byBookworm Room .


Here are this week’s full results. Gay Patriot and New Zeal were unable to vote this week, but neither was affected by the 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes! Joshuapundit – AG Holder And The DOJ Strike A Blow To Help Voter Fraud



• Second place with 2 votes – Bookworm Room- The story of Malia Obama's Mexican vacation reveals double standards and a noodle-spined media



• Third place with 1 1/3 vote – The Independent Sentinel- Obamacare Will Not Value Human Life - Proof Lies In A Killer Theory



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Noisy Room-Obama Preps for a 'Non-Emergency' Named Iran



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Simply Jews-Iranian nukes, POTUS, expectations and common sense



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD -The Xceptionals



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Colossus of Rhodey- Next violent act can be blamed on ... The Boss



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator – President Obama manipulating the truth about oil!



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi –From Communism to Capitalism



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet –Retired Postal Worker Claims Bill Ayers’ Mother Knew Obama Was a ‘Foreign Student’



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! –How Much Is the Obama Gas Price Increase Costing You?



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye –Come Fly With Me!



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Razor –Mixing Fashion with Politics and Atrocities

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 2/3 votes! – Bristol's Blog-Mr. President, When Should I Expect Your Call? submitted by Bookworm Room



• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Watts Up With That –Monckton's Schenectady Showdown submitted by The Glittering Eye



• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – At War - Social Media Expands Military Blogging submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD



• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes -The Sad Red Earth –Thinking Through the Iranian Dilemma submitted by Simply Jews



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Hurriyet/Burak Bekdil – World War IV? submitted by Joshuapundit



• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Right Wing News –5 Reasons Socialism Is Inferior To Capitalism submitted by The Mellow Jihadi



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Sultan Knish –The Tao of Warmongering submitted by The Noisy Room



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Townhall –Good News: Solar Firm Subsidized to Sell Panels... to Itself submitted by The Independent Sentinel



• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Accuracy In Media –World Government Lobby Frets Over Fate of Lugar submitted by The Right Planet



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Buckhorn Road –Look in my eyes; what do you see? The Cult of Personality submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
  



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Urban Grounds –The Mythical and Manufactured 'War on Womyn' submitted by Rhymes With Right



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Da Tech Guy Blog – Bill Maher and Alexandra Pelosi not racists; Feudal lord and Lady submitted by VA Right!



• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Commentary Contentions –The Abu Ghraib Double Standard submitted by Gay Patriot

See you next week! And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Lord Monckton: Obama Birth Certificate ‘Plainly A Forgery’

Lord Christopher Monckton, a graduate of Harrow and Cambridge, a prize winning journalist and former policy adviser to British PM Margaret Thatcher and a well known global warming skeptic is not a foolish or unintelligent man, regardless of whether you agree with him or not on certain issues.

During an interview on radio's 'The Larry Miller Show' Lord Monckton took clear aim at the long form birth certificate President Obama provided to his fellow citizens on the web and reiterated what a number of experts have already said - that regardless of where the president was born, what we've been presented with is an out and out forgery.

“I mean, hey you got a president who has a false birth certificate on the Internet, on the White House website,” Monckton said. “It’s not even clear where he was born. You’ve got a national debt which is rising into the stratosphere. You’ve got unemployment certainly here in California at 11 percent, 50 percent in the construction industry. These are real problems. You’ve got real environmental problems — overfishing, deforestation, pollution, not so much in the west but certainly in other countries. These are real problems which ought to be addressed. You’ve got poverty. You’ve got disease. These are again serious problems in Africa for instance, that we could be helping with. But no, we’re obsessed with making the rich even richer and making the absolute bankers richer still by going for global warming and cap-and-trade and other nonsenses of this kind.”

When Larry Miller protested that he disagreed with Lord Monckton, Lord Monckton doubled down.

“I don’t know whether he is Kenyan or not,” Monckton said. “The point is that if I were you, I would want to make absolutely sure that he was born here before allowing him to be elected. And the birth certificate that he put up on that website, I don’t know where he was born. But I do know that birth certificate isn’t genuine.”

Monckton firmly asserted that the birth certificate on the White House website wasn’t real, and claimed it could be dismantled with software.

“It appears in layers on the screen in such a way you can remove quite separately each of the individual dates,” Monckton said. “You use Adobe Illustrator and each of the individual dates is in its own separate layer. This thing has been fabricated. Sheriff [Joe] Arpaio of Arizona has had a team on this for six months. And he has now gone public and said there’s something very desperately wrong with this and of course nobody is saying anything because the entire electorate has been fooled.”

“I’m no birther, don’t get me wrong,” Monckton said. “I haven’t a clue where Obama was born and I wouldn’t want to entreat into the private grief behind investigating. But the point is, is what he has done on the White House website is he has put up a document which he is plainly a forgery and I would regard that as a very serious matter.”

Another tip off is the reference to President Obama's race as 'African' a term that was never used in that context back in 1961.

I've already examined in these pages certain discrepancies I noticed when the long form was finally released. Remember back before that happened when we were being told that 'President Obama has already released his birth certificate' and 'there's no so such thing as a long form birth certificate'?

As to why this president has spent considerable time and money hiding away information about himself that has always been openly available when it came to every other person who has run for the presidency, there are a number of quite plausible reasons that might or might not have something to do with where he was born, but would, shall we say, be more than a little embarrassing to this president and the 'myth' we were sold in 2008.

I doubt we're going to find out the truth until President Barack Obama is safely out of office. So it's not really an issue to pursue at this point as far as I'm concerned. But eventually, it's going to come out and some people are going to have a great deal of explaining to do.

Tunisia - Secularists Accuse Obama Administration Of Helping Muslim Brotherhood Take Over

Tunisia was the place where the much hyped Arab Spring started, and where long time Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was overthrown by a popular revolution.

However, as long time Arab world observer and journalist at large Michael Totten observes, the democratic revolution has largely been stolen by the Ennahda Party, Tunisia's Islamist Muslim Brotherhood offshoot.

And the Liberals and secularists are angered at what they perceive as the Obama Administration's assistance in helping them do it:

Radical Islamists are making inroads in the Arab world's most advanced, liberal, and tolerant country. And the secularists think the United States is helping them do it.

Thousands took to the streets of Tunisia's capital Tunis yesterday to celebrate the end of French colonial rule in 1956. As one might expect on independence day, most were in an anti-imperialist mood. Who are the “imperialists” in the Tunisian imagination today? Not the French. Not anymore. The “imperialists” of today are the United States and, oddly enough, Qatar. Both are seen, fairly or not, as the backers of Tunisia's Islamists.

“No to America, no to Qatar, the people of Tunisia will always be free.”

I heard that chant all morning on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, Tunis' own Champs-Elysees named after the modern republic's Ataturk-like first president. Demonstrators were protesting Washington's warm relations and close cooperation with the new ruling party which already appears to be slipping in popularity.

“People here think the United States is cooperating with Ennahda,” said local journalist Ashraf Ayadi, referring to the Islamists who won 42 percent of the vote in the election last October. Even though a majority of Tunisians voted against them, they still got more votes than any of the other various parties, so they got to choose the prime minister.

“People here are against the United States helping Ennahda,” Ayadi continued. “All Americans who come here are against the Islamists, but the American government is supporting them. I wish we had a good, modern, respectful Islamic party. I'm a Muslim and I'm proud of it, but I'm not proud of this party.”

The Americans are with the Islamists. They support Ennahda in Tunisia and the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia.

I've heard this complaint from every single secular person I've interviewed in this country without exception, from academics and democratic activists to journalists and teachers. They seem to be unanimously shocked and dismayed and appalled. The subject comes up again and again in conversation even when I ask about other things. It's impossible to spend any time here whatsoever without hearing about it.

These people are not part of a marginal fringe movement like their Egyptian counterparts. Politically secular Tunisians make up half the country or more. And they're depressed about what is happening now. Rami Sghayier, a young activist who does volunteer work with Amnesty International, seems to speak for most when he says, “We made the revolution and they got the power.”

They, of course, are the dour men and women of Ennahda, Tunisia's version of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It turns out that just like their Egyptian counterparts, the Ennahda aren't the 'moderates' President Obama told us they were. Instead, they're allied with the salafis in Tunisia, just as the Muslim Brotherhood are in Egypt and pretty much everywhere else:

“It is a fascist party,” Sghayier continued. “They tried to convince people they're just defending religion and they won the election that way, but they have a fascist program. They said if they win they will create 500,000 jobs for unemployed people, but they gave the ministry of employment to a different party. Nothing happened. They're not even trying. It's a fascist party because it's protecting the Salafists and other extremists. We don't only have the Salafists here, we also have Hizb ut-Tahrir. The interior minister did not even move his finger when the Tunisian national flag was attacked at Manouba University by Salafists. Last week, on March 7, they took down our country's flag and replaced it with their black flag.”

Most Tunisians don't seem to understand Washington. And the administration does not seem to understand Tunis. Western governments, including the Obama administration, decided Ennahda is a moderate Islamist party that they can do business with, but secular and liberal Tunisians think that analysis is a load of old bollocks.

I met with Zeyneb Farhat, director of Tunisia's national theater, El Teatro.

“Most journalists in the West,” I said, “describe Ennahda as a moderate party in almost every single article about this country.”

“These are not serious people,” she said. “They have no idea what they are talking about. Ennahda is not moderate. Let me tell you, nobody at the United States Embassy in Tunisia was informed. Nobody. That's why Hillary Clinton twice told Ennahda that their merchandise is not what was sold a few months ago in order to get support from the American administration.

“We're closely following all the declarations of the people in government. Two days ago the minister of the interior was speaking more to Hillary Clinton than to the people of Tunisia when he said, 'Nobody is above the law and the Salafists will be punished.' But they're not. Of course they're not. He was lying. Just a few days ago there was a demonstration in front of the parliament by Salafists carrying the black flag and demanding the implementation of Sharia law. Officials from Ennahda were with them. We are not children. We know how to read signs.”

It's important to remember that the majority of Tunisians voted against Ennahda. If either the Democratic or Republican party in the United States won a mere 42 percent of the vote, the election would rightly be called an epic shellacking.

One place Totten has it wrong, in my opinion, is giving the Obama Administration a pass for their overt encouragement and support of the Muslim Brotherhood and offshoots like Ennahda in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia,not to mention US financing of Hamas through funds channeled through various NGO's.

The Brotherhood and their Salafist allies are now in control of Libya, Gaza and Tunisia and have a decent chance of taking over Jordan and the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria west of the Jordan River. This is only a step away from the Caliphate Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna dreamed of, and exactly why al-Qaeda's new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is now relocating al-Qaeda's main base of operations back to the Arab world.

President Obama and the clueless elites that he surrounded himself saw the Muslim Brotherhood as allies in what they conceived as a new world order, not as dangerously radical Islamists and salafists.

Barring unseen events, we'll be living with his error for some time to come.

A Few Words From Our Founder...

One of the great things about being a part of the Watchers Council isn't the fame,the blogging groupies or the obscene amounts of money to be made but the great people you get to associate with.

For me, one of those people has always been the founder of the Watcher's Council,the Watcher Emeritus who first conceived of the idea back in 2003.Ever since I first joined the Council back in 2005 and since his retirement, he and I have been in touch off and on, and I'm glad to say that's he's now back in the blogging world at last on his spiffy new site Crazy Bald Guy.

I finally talked him into an interview where he weighs in about the Council, its origins and blogging in general, insights from someone who was there at the creation, so to speak.

Rob: How did you first get involved in blogging?What attracted you to it?

Watcher Emeritus: It was around the time that KSM was captured that I first started blogging... I had an interest in politics for a while before that, but never quite knew what to do with it. Sometime during the Clinton impeachment I got into the habit of arguing about politics online in various forums, and this habit intensified throughout the 2000 election... after 9/11 and the War on Terror began I started to notice that just about everyone had a blog. I decided to get one of my own so that I could have my own place to vent.

Rob: What first gave you the idea for the Watcher's Council? How did you come up with the original bylaws and format? Was it trial and error,or did you pretty much have a good idea of how to proceed?

Watcher Emeritus: The Watcher's Council came about when I noticed there so many blogging carnivals out there... I thought they could be a good way to promote blogs, but they seemed to have a bit too much randomness in the links being presented. I figured having some sort of vote would be the best way to filter through everything and try to put the focus more on quality than quantity. I thought on it for a while, and eventually came up with what I figured would be a pretty fair way to handle that kind of vote... then I settled on a few basic requirements for members to follow, and got started recruiting.

Rob: What was the most challenging part of getting the Council together? The biggest surprise?

Watcher Emeritus: Well, putting it together wasn't so bad... the hardest part was probably just dealing with all the emails back and forth trying to spread the word about it. I was surprised that there seemed to be quite a few people interested in joining right off the bat, though I think it did take a while to completely fill up all the open spots. I also wrote a PHP script for myself to help me with all the vote counting.

Rob: When approximately did you stop being the Watcher and why?

Watcher Emeritus: I stopped blogging sometime in the middle of 2008... partly due to health problems, partly due to money problems, and partly due to just being burned out on everything in general.

Rob: What was your initial reaction to finding out we've kept it going all this time? Were you aware that the members kept the Council going after you left? What was your reaction?When approximately did you become aware we were still alive and kickin'?

Watcher Emeritus: Even after I quit blogging I would still lurk here and there, and comment once in a while in a few places, so I could see things were still going... nice to see it still going strong for so long.Yeah, I was glad to see that it didn't end just because I had to stop.

Rob: While keeping to the basic format and traditions you set up,the Council has evolved quite a bit. How would you compare then and now? Do you feel the quality of the content overall has improved, declined, or remained the same? (loaded question, that last one!)

Watcher Emeritus: If you had to make a few minor adjustments in order to keep things going, I can't really complain... without you it wouldn't be there at all anymore, so thanks for all the work you've put into it. And it's hard to really compare between then and now, the membership was always in flux even when I was still running things. The current members have been writing a lot of quality stuff though, my hat's off to you all. It's really nice to see that at least a few people have stuck around this whole time.

Rob: As a blogging pioneer, what are your thoughts on how blogging has evolved and where it's heading?

Watcher Emeritus: I guess maybe I have been blogging for a while now, but it's hard for me to call myself a pioneer... by the time I started my own blog it seemed to me like everyone else already had one. It's been interesting to see the impact that Twitter has had on blogging... I notice that many bloggers now also use Twitter, and some bloggers have even scaled back their blogging to the point where they are using Twitter almost exclusively. You can't say very much in a single tweet, but I find Twitter is a very useful way to fill in the gaps when I just can't seem to cough up a full blog post... it's also a handy way to find new things to blog about.

Rob: Aside from Twitter, social media like Reddit and Facebook seem to be driving a great deal of blogging traffic nowadays. What's your reaction to that?

Watcher Emeritus: Hmmmm, not sure. I know what Reddit is, but don't think I've ever used it before... I don't have a Facebook page myself, so all my Facebook experience comes from following links to there from blogs, not the other way around. When I'm not fussing with my blog or reading another blog somewhere else, I tend to be on either Twitter or Youtube.

Rob: Any words of wisdom or thoughts in general you'd like to pass on to your loyal acolytes?

Watcher Emeritus: Never try to boil eggs in the microwave, it won't end well.

Watcher's Council Nominations...March Madness Edition

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Ah, March Madness. Am I referring to roundball, the Republican primaries, the faux 'war on women' or the price of gas? The state of the world in general? Something else? Take your pick.

This week's contest is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two young sons Arye and Gabriel, and Miriam Monsonego ( H"YD).

Council News:

This week, Liberty's Spirit , The Grouch, Maggie's Notebook and Right Truth took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PSTin order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let's see what we have this week....

Council Submissions

• Joshuapundit-AG Holder And The DOJ Strike A Blow To Help Voter Fraud
• The Political Commentator – President Obama manipulating the truth about oil!
• The Noisy Room – Obama Preps for a 'Non-Emergency' Named Iran
• The Glittering Eye -Come Fly With Me!
• The Independent Sentinel – Obamacare Will Not Value Human Life - Proof Lies In A Killer Theory
• Simply Jews – Iranian nukes, POTUS, expectations and common sense
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – The Xceptionals
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Next violent act can be blamed on ... The Boss
• Rhymes With Right – Racist Sacks Of Crap Come Out Against Possibility Of White First Lady
• The Right Planet – Retired Postal Worker Claims Bill Ayers’ Mother Knew Obama Was a ‘Foreign Student’
• VA Right!-How Much Is the Obama Gas Price Increase Costing You?
• The Mellow Jihadi – From Communism to Capitalism
• Bookworm Room – The story of Malia Obama's Mexican vacation reveals double standards and a noodle-spined media
• Gay Patriot – Obama: Doubling Down on Debt
• The Razor – Mixing Fashion with Politics and Atrocities

Honorable Mentions

• The Grouch - Lennie, the Looney Facebook Liberal
• Maggie's Notebook - TSA to Exempt Muslim Women from TSA PatDowns? Adjustments and More Expected – For Muslims Only
• Right Truth - Calling For Blood
• Liberty's Spirit - "As a Jew" Jews Part 2: Hypocrites and Self-Hatred

Non-Council Submissions

• Hurriyet/Burak Bekdil – World War IV? submitted by Joshuapundit
• World Net Daily -'Ghost' of '08 to haunt Obama in 2012? submitted by The Political Commentator
• Sultan Knish –The Tao of Warmongering submitted by The Noisy Room
• Just One Minute – Monckton's Schenectady Showdown submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Townhall – Good News: Solar Firm Subsidized to Sell Panels... to Itself submitted by The The Independent Sentinel
• The Sad Red Earth – Thinking Through the Iranian Dilemma submitted by Simply Jews
• At War – Social Media Expands Military Blogging submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Buckhorn Road – Look in my eyes; what do you see? The Cult of Personality submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Urban Grounds – The Mythical and Manufactured 'War on Womyn' submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Accuracy In Media – World Government Lobby Frets Over Fate of Lugar submitted by The Right Planet
• Da Tech Guy Blog – Bill Maher and Alexandra Pelosi not racists; Feudal lord and Lady submitted by VA Right!
• Right Wing News –5 Reasons Socialism Is Inferior To Capitalism submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Bristol's Blog-Mr. President, When Should I Expect Your Call? submitted by Bookworm Room
• Commentary Contentions -The Abu Ghraib Double Standard submitted by Gay Patriot
• Via Meadia –Beyond Blue 8: Even The Dems Can’t Hack It Anymore submitted by The Razor
• Melanie Phillips – Fast and, er, furious, Mr President? submitted by The Watcher
• Pajamas Media/David Gerstman /strong> – Washington Post Halfway Out of the Obama Tank? submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Which Way Is The GOP Race Headed?

Now that the Illinois primary is over, it might be a good time to actually examine the GOP race in the cold light of fact. And the fact is that Rick Santorum faces an almost impossible task in getting the GOP nomination barring something crazy happening. And that's especially true since he lost huge in Illinois tonight.

Let's take a brief look at the actual math involved.

To get the nomination, you need 1,144 delegates.

Right now, not taking Illinois 54 delegates into account, Mitt Romney has 521 delegates, while Rick Santorum has 253. Newt Gingrich, who's no longer really a factor has 135.

There are 289 unbound 'super delegates' not pledged to Santorum, Gingrich or Paul. Mitt Romney already has 33 of those delegates..giving him a total of 554.

The next slew of upcoming primaries include 329 delegates who will be awarded on a winner take all basis, all in states Romney is heavily favored to win - Maryland (37), Washington DC (16), Delaware (17),California (169), NewJersey (50), and Utah (40) that gives Romney a total of 883, not counting Romney's Illinois win ( 54 delegates) , not counting any delegates Romney picks up in other states that award delegates proportionately and not counting any additional super delegates that get behind the front runner, as they always do towards the end.

The other upcoming proportional primaries in New York (95 delegates) and Rhode Island ( 19 delegates) also strongly favor Romney.

Even if Rick Santorum wins the only other winner take all primary in Wisconsin, (42 delegates), even if he wins most of Louisiana's 46 delegates, even if he manages to get most of the delegates in his home state of Pennsylvania, even if he wins the majority of the 155 delegates in Texas ( and I think both Texas and Pennsylvania going totally to Santorum are doubtful ) the math just isn't there for him to get to 1,144.

Unless Mitt Romney commits such a huge gaffe that he simply knocks himself out of the race.

What I think this means is that both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich need to do some serious thinking. Both of them say they want to defeat Barack Obama in November, and neither of them have any strategy left to get the nomination outside of some kind of sabotage at the convention.

Meanwhile, as the contentious GOP primary continues eating up oxygen and money,President Obama is flying around the country at the taxpayer's expense and building his campaign and his war chest unimpeded.

I hope both of them sit back, take a deep breath and reflect on these two facts.

Jon McNaughton's Latest Painting 'One Nation Under Socialism'

Artist Jon McNaughton, whose last picture showed President Obama stepping on the Constitution before an aghast audience of former presidents has a new work out, entitled 'One Nation Under Socialism' which depicts a glowering President Obama holding our Constitution as it burns.

Your thoughts? You can see the picture above in the video the artist put out.

The Iran Sanctions That Aren't - State Department Give Waivers to 11 Countries

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that the State Department is exempting 10 European countries and Japan from penalties for doing business with Iran's central bank:

"I am pleased to announce that an initial group of eleven countries has significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran -- Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. As a result, I will report to the Congress that sanctions pursuant to Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) will not apply to the financial institutions based in these countries, for a renewable period of 180 days," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Tuesday statement. "The actions taken by these countries were not easy. They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs."

Of course, Mrs. Clinton didn't mention that Iran has already announced it would no longer sell crude to France and the United Kingdom, so they're getting a waiver based on Iran's actions,not theirs. And the other EU countries have already announced they will phase out all purchases of Iranian oil by July 1st. However, at this point it really doesn't matter. Without barring countries from dealing with Iran's Central Bank the oil sanctions are almost meaningless.

Let me explain to you why. Oil is fungible, and as we saw with the UN's Oil for Food scandal involving Saddam Hussein and Iraq, it's easily transferable, can easily be moved through other hands to disguise its origin and can be swapped via third parties for other items. The US could even end up buying Iranian oil if it was shipped to say, Venezuela and reflagged. But take away the ability of buyers to pay Iran for it directly by isolating Iran's central bank and it becomes a much more difficult and costly matter.

One of the few effective things President George W. Bush did in the period after 9/11 to fight Islamist terrorism was to identify the banks used to bankroll it and a number of questionable individuals and organizations who held accounts in otherwise legitimate institutions. Aside from freezing all suspect assets here in America and blocking US financial institutions from having any dealings with the suspect accounts and organizations, President Bush successfully got foreign financial institutions to cooperate by ordering US financial institutions not to deal with banks overseas handling accounts for places like the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan, Italy, Al Taqwa Construction in Dubai and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society(RIHS) in Kuwait, all al-Qaeda and Hamas fronts. Since the world's banking system is wired through New York, most countries complied, which led to something like $79.9 million in terrorist assets being seized.

If President Obama was actually serious about stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program and ending Iran's financing of terrorism, he'd do something similar and make all of Iran's banks including Iran's central bank persona non grata in the world's financial systems using the same tools. Even countries like China and India might decide that forgoing Iranian oil was better than having their ability to perform financial transactions here in America compromised or curtailed.

But then, that was never going to happen with this president. I've become fairly convinced that President Obama isn't particularly exercised about whether Iran goes nuclear or not. He might just take a wag the dog option to pull off a strike on Iran if he's lagging in the polls come October, but failing that, he appears to be fine with it.

Either he's simply clueless and doesn't see the danger, is too preoccupied with his domestic agenda and his re-election bid,or feels that America needs to be taken down a peg. Or perhaps a combination of all three.

Adam Corolla On Why California Votes Democrat

There's a great deal of truth in what Adam Corolla has to say here...

The Sex Was Killer...Really

The smiling gentleman above is Bob Caldwell, 63, editor of The Oregonian’s prize winning editorial pages for over 20 years.

He passed away suddenly from cardiac arrest after what was described as a 'sex act' with a 23-year-old woman in her Tigard, Oregon apartment.

From what the woman, a student at Portland Community College told police, she started hopping into bed with Caldwell over a year ago, and that the deal was essentially money for school books and other necessary items in exchange for sex.

Police are not going to charge her with prostitution because, wait for it ... Caldwell was unable to pay her on that particular day, for obvious reasons.

Caldwell left a wife and children, who amid their grief can be sure of one thing..he died happy and went out with a real bang.

R.I.P.

Russian Troops Arrive In Syria As Revolt Starts To Fall Apart

The Russians have sent anti-terrorism special forces into Syria, according to Russian news reports.

You'll recall that Syrian leader Basher Assad has consistently claimed that he's fighting a 'terrorist action' rather than a revolt.

The troops, Russian marines arrived via the tanker ship Iman, which docked in the Syrian port of Tartus, the Russian's primary base in the Mediterranean. It's not known exactly what their mission in Syria is, but it is a definite show of support for the regime. Russia has consistently blocked any sanctions or significant action against Syria, a good customer for Russian arms and other goods.

Just last week, Russian foreign minister Serge Lavrov was quoted as saying that Russia had no plans to send troops to Syria.

The rebels themselves appear in major disarray these days. As Barry Rubin details, the Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated rebel leadership the Obama Administration openly collaborated in creating in th eform of the Syrian National Council is collapsing as the entire revolt breaks up into factions:

Of the nineteen announced members of the top leadership, I explained, ten of them were Islamists, either Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist. A reliable Syrian opposition source tells me that two more members are secretly Islamist tools. This was far in excess of the proportion of those forces in the revolution. In short, the U.S. government was helping to turn Syria’s revolution over to the Islamists. If this group had succeeded, the West would be facing still another radical Islamist regime that hated the West, wanted to go to war with Israel, and would be imposing a new dictatorship on its country.

As the New York Times admits, al-Labwani, “accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of `monopolizing funding and military support.’” Yet there is not a word about how the Obama Administration pushed this Brotherhood-dominated leadership onto the Syrian opposition.

Most of the Kurds involved in the original talks angrily walked out of the negotiations because of their objection to Islamist leadership. The Obama Administration’s choice of Turkey to coordinate this operation made it even harder to bring in Syrian Kurds, who play an important role in the revolution, since Turkey has fought a long war against Kurdish nationalism at home.

Another issue fomenting conflict is the SNC’s bad relationship with the Free Syrian Army and the SNC’s rejection of armed struggle to overthrow the dictatorship. Anti-Islamist oppositionists say that this is because the Islamists hope to make a deal with the regime that would give them more power now and, they hope, would bring them to power in the longer run.

Due to these various antagonisms, more than a half-dozen other opposition groups have developed as rivals to the SNC.

In other words, President Obama and his advisers in Washington tried totake over what was a genuine democratic revolt and turn it over to the Islamists, which disturbed several factions so much that they decided to fragment off on their own...which means Assad now has a much better chance of surviving thanks to none other than the current occupant of the White House.

No wonder the Russians felt safe enough to double down to make sure Assad stays in power.

Kharzai: Americans Are 'Demons' , 'Satanic'; Afghans Claim Killings A Planned Military Strike

Afghan President Hamid Kharzai is repeatedly referring to Americans in Afghanistan as 'demons', refers to the Q'uran burnings as "wild and inhumane' and as “Satanic acts that will never be forgiven by apologies” and said that the killing of 16 Afghan civilians was "not the first incident, indeed it was the 100th, the 200th and 500th incident."

In a recent speech that was broadcast all over the country on Friday, the day Muslims go to mosques to get riled up by incendiary sermons, he called on Afghans to "pray for God to rescue us from these two demons,” meaning America and the Taliban.

What President Kharzai is doing is attempting to bolster his own popularity by indulging in rhetoric that threatens the lives of the very people whom are keeping him in power.

Just wait, it gets better.

As you may remember, the Afghans are conducting their own investigations into the unfortunate events surrounding the killing of 16 civilians in Kandahar.

While Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales is being held in Ft. Leavenworth awaiting charges for the killings, the Afghan investigators, which included a number of mullahs and members of the Kharzai government have come up with their own story, and it surpasses even the usual exaggeration and hyperbole one constantly sees in the Muslim world.

The Afghans are claiming that two groups of soldiers, totaling 15 to 20 troops, carried out a planned attack with air support:

The delegation, sent to Kandahar by the Afghan House of Representatives, reported that two groups of soldiers, totaling 15 to 20 troops, carried out a planned attack with air support, killing nine children and seven other civilians.

But the US investigation has repeatedly maintained that only one soldier was behind the assassination.

Unbelievable. But to be expected when our 'ally' Afghan President Hamid Kharzai is referring to us as 'demons'.

No matter what happens in the Bales case, I say we take him at his word. Let's pull out of Afghanistan and leave them to the barbaric 7th century Islamo-Disneyland they obviously find so much more to their liking.

As for Kharzhai, I guarantee you that as soon as we leave he, his cronies and their families will be jetting to Europe or the Emirates right behind us to enjoy the money they've stolen from us over the last decade.

Four Murdered At Jewish School In France

I am saddened to report the murder of a rabbi and three Jewish children by a gunman who attacked Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, France today.

The victims were Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and two of his sons, Arye, 6, and Gabriel, 3 and the young daughter of the school principle, Miriam Monsonego, 8 (H"YD). Another student was critically wounded.

Rabbi Sandler and his family came to Toulouse from Jerusalem with his family just last September to teach religious studies at the school.

The killer simply rode up on a motor bike when the children were entering the school and started shooting at them, then left the same way. According to witnesses, the killer filmed the murders with a small video camera he had attached to this neck.

Both French President President Nicolas Sarkozy and his main rival for the presidency, Socialist François Hollande denounced the attack, and both of them broke off their political campaigns to rush to the scene.

Sarkozy called the murders a “national tragedy” and ordered a minute’s silence to be observed across France on Tuesday at 11 a.m. Special prayers were offered today at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

There is a tie in to other incidents in the same area.The attack comes days after three soldiers were killed and two wounded in two separate shootings, also by a man who escaped on a motorbike. All the soldiers were said to have just come back from fighting in Afghanistan. Forensics experts in France have matched the ballistics and feel that the same gun was used in all three killings.

ברוך אמנות אתה אדוני אלוהינוהשופט האמיתי

Democrats - Down For The Cause!

Of course, as we all know, hey it's Bush's fault!

Bill Maher Shows 'Welfare Queen' Video HBO Refused To

Last week, HBO ran a controversial video showing white Mississippians who essentially fit the Leftist stereotype of 'toothless,racist rednecks' saying inflammatory things about President Obama. The video was made by Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's daughter.

She then made another video showing multiple welfare recipients in New York City proclaiming they were at the welfare office to get their "Obama bucks" and that they supported Obama because he "gives me stuff."

According to Ms. Pelosi, HBO balked at showing the second video. Nevertheless, to her credit and Bill Maher's, they pushed back and showed the video anyway, and Ms. Pelosi had a number of intelligent things to say about the entitlement culture that goes with it.

As expected, the majority of the recipients were black, and made the predictable remarks about it being reparations for slavery, and also as expected, Maher recognized that as 'more authentic' than the white Mississippian's 'chip on their shoulders' he put it. He obviously needs a few history lessons, but he's certainly entitled.

But again, they did show both videos. And the reaction of Maher's audience, largely Lefties was interesting, catcalls and laughter during the clips of the white Mississippians and dead silence after the welfare recipients video underlines what both Pelosi and Maher said.

We've gotten to the point where the extremes, manipulated by cynical politicians, are driving the narrative to the detriment of the majority.

It's a pity that neither Pelosi nor Maher were willing to look at a lot of the divisive and even racist rhetoric the Obama Administration and its surrogates are using as one of the prime culprits, but let's take the small victories where we can.

(h/t,Breitbart.com)

Army Sergeant Suspected In Afghan Killings Identified

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is suspected of killing 16 Afghan villagers and attempting to burn some of the bodies has been flown to the U.S. and is now being held in an isolated cell at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

His overall profile makes it more likely that what happened in Afghanistan that night happened when he was simply not in his right mind.

He's a ten year veteran who enlisted after 9/11, giving up a good job as a stock trader to do it. Sergeant Bales had completed four tours serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,and had a string of commendations for good conduct. His former platoon leader described him as a model soldier, who performed coolly and competently under fire:

[Army Capt. Chris Alexander] said that while serving with Bales, he saw no evidence that Bales had any more difficulty dealing with the stresses of battle than anyone else. If the allegations against Bales are true, "it's 100 percent out of character for him."

"He always made sure his team was ready, that they were briefed on the mission, that the equipment was checked," he said. "Anything he was given to do, you never had to worry about it getting done and done well."

"I'm not a psychologist, but you don't go from being a solid NCO (noncommissioned officer) to this unless there are extenuating circumstances," Alexander said. "He is not some psychopath. He's an outstanding soldier who has given a lot for this country."

The dinosaur media is looking into Bales' background with a microscope,because the script is to paint him as a crazed killer who finally snapped because the Army was to blame. Think of it as a modern day spin on the old 'crazed, psycho baby killer Vietnam vet' that was so popular with them for awhile.

So far, they've managed to find a few indications of financial troubles largely based on the plummeting real estate market, an incident of what was likely reckless driving that he paid a fine on and an old incident with a girl friend that resulted in his having to attend some anger management classes - again, nothing unusual given the way today's laws are structured.In actuality, Bales' overall background is fairly normal and straightforward.

Bales' attorney will be John Henry Browne, a Seattle attorney famous for defending serial killer Ted Bundy. Bales will also have at least one military lawyer.

Charges against Bales are still being decided as an investigation of what happened continues and will probably be filed within a week or so.

The defense may very well build its case around post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or temporary insanity. Given the politics of the situation and the fact that the Afghans are screaming for Bales' head, that's going to be an uphill battle even if it's the truth.

The Latest LATMA - Cutting Edge Israeli Satire!

Gingrich's Supporters Evenly Split Between Mitt and Rick For Second Choice

Now this is interesting.

According to Gallup:



Apparently if Newt Gingrich drops out of the race (and I doubt he will unless he runs out of money) Santorum might not benefit as much as some people think.

Apparently some people have noticed that in spite of his labeling himself a 'conservative', he's really just a Big Government guy from the other side of the spectrum.

(h/t, Ace)

A Personal Message From Israel's Iron Dome Soldiers

Here we have something unique...a nation's warriors talk to the citizens they're defending, the Israeli population being attacked with rockets from Gaza. They look like fierce, young eagles.

I especially liked the last part, a young soldier's message to his mother. The English translation is at the bottom of the screen.

Only in Israel!

(h/t, Snoopy)