Savage Republican

Four dead children in SW Minnesota. Details at first were sketchy. Today, there are more.
One of the victims tells of what he saw: “ I saw the maroon van run a stop sign, it blew over the railroad tracks and hit the bus, sending it sliding into me,” Hancock, 47, said from his hospital bed in Sioux Falls, S.D. “The next thing I knew, they were hauling kids out and it was chaos.” And the driver of that maroon van? ” Authorities have identified the van driver as Alianiss Morales, 23, who neighbors say works as a turkey processor at the Jenny-O plant in Montevideo, Minn. She pleaded guilty in 2006 to driving without a valid license and paid a $182 fine. State records show Morales has no valid driver’s license, but was issued a Minnesota state identification card.” Now, the Star Tribune could get a statement from Hancock, but nothing from Morales? They had to talk to her neighbors and all they could find out was that she worked as a turkey processor? Nothing more? And no drivers license, but a MN state ID card? A prior conviction for driving without a valid drivers license. There are way too many red flags popping up here.
This is a story I’m going to stay on top of.

Now, after scewering Savage Republican, let’s get back to agreement. SR has stated a number of times that he never counts the Clinton Machine out. Ever. I agree. But it’s not the machine anymore that should concern us. It’s what the machine is programmed to do.
I caught the last few minutes of “Terminator II: Judgment Day”. Ahhnahld, the Terminator took the steel rod through the processor after being hammered and dismembered. But, power was re-routed and the automatic reboot took over. And the Terminator Machine was off and operating to do as programmed. Period.
So, even with Prairie Pravda saying Hillary is on the ropes, that with the machine being broken, the software that runs the machine is still there. The Clintons want the Presidency. They feel they are deserving of the Presidency. What the Democrats want is of little or no importance. The Clinton Machine is programmed to obtain the nomination.
As Jim Geraghty said on BTR today that Hillary’s exit in Denver, should that be the case, will not be a sound of adieu, but of fingernails screeching across the floor as she is dragged away from the podium screaming “That nomination is MINE. Do you hear me, MINE!?!”
Programmed for one thing and one thing only.

Last week before Mr. Flu gave me an early birthday present, I came across A Prairie Pravda “Letter of the Day“. It was about the author’s outrage at the shootings at NIU. She was mentally and emotionally exfoliating. What I usually do is drop to the end of the letter to see if the author confesses to being a member of any group. She did not.
Her first statement was “How many have to die like this, in our civilized democracy, before we decide we have had enough?” A rather peculiar question, but I read on. Then came the money quote: “ I am tired of the arguments, neatly and tightly worded and provided by the National Rifle Association. You know, “Guns don’t kill — people do” or “We have the right to bear arms” or “It was our forefathers’ plan for our citizens to be able to arm themselves.” Blah, blah, blah.” And all her irrationality was suddenly laid naked. She went to blame all parties:”It is an election year. Why doesn’t either side ever want to bring the issue of guns in our society to the table? I mean, really bring it to the table, not just package it up, shrug our shoulders and turn to other issues. Gun “control” as we have now means there is no control at all. Our country is out of control, and I am afraid we are all becoming numb to it.“
Well, Ms. Kim Van Zant-Aune of St. Louis Park, now that you stated stated your perspective, what do you suggest? Your rather lame “gun control as we have it now means there is no control at all” is inaccurate at best. There is certainly control. All law abiding citizens obey gun control laws. Every one of those dead students was obeying the law. The shooter was not under control. What law would you propose that he would have observed? What statute would you have had on the books that would have stopped him dead in his tracks? Only one I know of: having an armed student in that classroom.
We tried it your way: NIU is a gun free zone. How’d that work for you?
Now, I’m going to tell you a real dirty little secret that we firearms owners know that you flamers on the left either don’t know or refuse to acknowledge: if you wanted to, you could go and buy, illegally of course, a firearm within 10 miles of your comfortable house out there in that cushy western suburb.
So, if you read this, please tell me in comments 1. What statute you’d propose so this will never happen again 2. Exactly how that statute will work-not how you wish it would work, but the day-to-day mechanics of that law on the streets.
Oh, and a by the way, what would you have done had you been in Cole Hall that day? Stood up and told Mr. Kazmierczak, in absolutely NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that was violating a gun free zone law? I’m sure that he would have, at that point, dropped all his weapons and signed up for a lifetime membership at the VPC (Violence Policy Center).
I’m quite certain.
If only you had been there.
So, to answer Ms. Van Zant-Aune’s first question: it seems like a lot more will have to die, thanks to people like you. Hugh Hewitt has on his radio show a quote from Samuel L. Jackson from Die Hard III “I don’t like you because you’re going to get me killed!”
You’re going to get a lot more people killed Ms. Van Zant-Aune.

Mitt Romney was just in the race to get McCain nominated.

Besides the statistical proof I provided earlier,

Now this: Romney Endorses McCain

Hopefully this will end all the, just wait until 2012 when we can endorse a real conservative like Mitt Romney.

We need a real conservative – Mitt wasn’t it.

Captain Ed has issued a challenge of sorts regarding the Danish cartoonists that drew a cartoon of Mohamed. Yesterday the Danes announced that they had rounded conspirators that were planning to murder the Danish cartoonists responsible for the drawings. And Danish newspapers reprinted the image. Captain Ed has asked the blogosphere to respond.
So, here is the “offending” cartoon:

Glad to help in my/our own small way.

I’m still waiting to see one report showing that biofuel, biodiesel, or whatever is worth a damn-except to corn farmers. As an aside, I have a friend who has a number of pork growers as clients who are plenty steamed at ethanol because of the huge increase in feed costs because of the extreme market dislocation due to ethanol subsidies. Do you think the feds and states will bail out the pork farmers too along with keeping any and all other price supports and subsidies? Bet on it. And no squawks from the pig farmers. Oops, a correction: the Feds and states won’t bail the pork farmers out: you will. By force. Now, on to the reason for the blog.
Hugo Chavez has stopped oil sales to Exxon-Mobil. Venezuela is our fourth largest oil supplier.
So, Senators Coleman, Feinstein, Boxer, Schumer , McCain and President Bush: why aren’t we drilling in ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico, the coastal shelves off Florida and California? We have an oil economy. Period. The government only destroys markets. So it can not create one. We need oil. It’s a wonderful source of energy. Ethanol, biodiesel, wind does not and has not and will not work. Oil does.
Hey Norm: you are all flummoxed about Northwest Airlines merging with Delta and 2,000 jobs going away. Well, you weren’t concerned enough. When Northwest was restructuring under bankruptcy, the modeled cost per barrel was $65. And Northwest management was thought to be quite prudent. Well, $65 bbl was some time ago. And where would oil prices be if we had ANWR online now? If we were bringing in oil from the Gulf? And all the prices linked to oil? And it’s OUR oil, produced close to our shores and/or inside our borders. Secure, safe, and ours. Dependable, efficient, effective and now.
No debate. Just get out of the way.

The caucuses are over in MN. The whining started before the straw poll votes on all the Post-It Notes were even tallied.
Calls for a Presidential Primary were rampant, especially from the DFL . And why these rising voices against being “disenfranchised”? Because people were “inconvenienced”.
Here are some comments from the Prairie Pravda story linked above with my thoughts:
“Unfortunately, my voice could not be heard in the caucus last night. I showed up at the precinct to find that I had to sit through an hour meeting and THEN vote. Well, this just didn’t suit my schedule (due to a prior commitment) and I had to leave. -mollymay” “Just didn’t fit my schedule”. A splendid reason to abolish a grassroots system of political involvement from people in your very neighborhood. Maybe you could let your local party leaders know your schedule in advance so the whole state could be run for your convenience. Please get back to us when your schedule permits.
“The Republican caucus system is ALREADY not for everyone … an evening caucus at a set time already favors (a) those who aren’t going to have to hire a babysitter in order to go (b) those with no other obligations in the evening. A primary that is open all day enables everyone to find a time to go and vote.-spmerrill” Let me see if I have this straight- here is a date certain at a time certain that is set months ahead. And there are some people who “aren’t going to hire a babysitter” seems like a choice to me. These people chose not to hire a babysitter. Good for them. A choice. And if they chose to bring their children, I didn’t see, I didn’t post, I wasn’t asked to post and I wouldn’t post a “No Children Allowed” sign. What’s the problem here? I saw plenty of children at our caucuses. And “those with no other obligations in the evening“? Again, how important is it for you to get to your caucus? Seems like spmerrill made a choice. And the caucus was number three in importance. Also seems that spmerrill was looking for the wrong caucus. Spmerrill is right about the fact that the Republican caucus system is ALREADY not for everyone- Whiny snivelers like spmerrill: the DFL caucuses are for you. Go there and whine.
“I was denied the right to partiapate(sic) because I work nights and am unable to attend the caucuses without getting a blemish on my work record-busyboybill” Dear victim busyboybill you whiney sniveler or sniveling whiner (we believe in diversity, pick a title you like)- don’t know how to break this to you, but you do not a right to caucus. Plus you are exactly what we’ve come to expect from a public education. You did have a right to choose which was more important to you: attend a caucus or get a blemish on your work record. You chose what worked for you. You chose that job. That night job. With no blemishes (according to you). If night work proves a disadvantage to you, get another job. But quit sniveling while you whine. Go to the little whiney girls caucus: the DFL. Meanwhile, shaddup!
“Primaries are a much more democratic way to select. Many people are either intimidated by caucuses, or unable to attend.-Biddie” Ah Biddie, you sniveling whiner. So, you prefer something other than YOUR neighbors getting together and discussing what’s important to YOUR neighbors. It’s better to have a primary with a slick run media campaign with sound bites that don’t really and never did inform voters? What on earth is more democratic that the people that live on each side of you meet to discuss and vote on issues important to them? True grassroots politics going ground-up is less democratic? The reason someone is “unable to attend” is because they are in a coma, trying to extricate themselves from a flaming car wreck, in prison, dead (not an excuse not to vote for a Democrat however) or they choose not to attend. And what do you mean they’re “intimidated“? Intimidated by sitting on their butts and listening and putting a mark on a small paper ballot? That intimidates them? Yikes! These people must be miserable with the thought of drowning in a shower or in a hard rainstorm. Ah, but wait: when we finally have a Universal Health Care system with all the panache’ and success of the Canadian health care system, delivered by the candidates at your DFL caucus, all those phobias can finally be addressed. In the meantime, they still need to stop sniveling while they whine. And you: stop whining while you snivel. Get over to your next intimidating DFL caucus. Hope you “feel” like you’re able to attend. And I hope that you don’t “feel” intimidated.
Reading these snivelings from these whiners (or whining from these snivelers) goes to prove that we need “reasonable” controls on voting and caucus attending.
I will not be shocked when these little whiney girls want to have a law passed where they can get decaf soy milk lattes after 6:00 p.m if they attend their non-intimidating, mandated provided child care at their conveniently scheduled , fragrance free, affirmative action cleared, empowering, non-judgmental, bio-diverse, non-speciism, PETA, AFSCME,NEA approved, non-peanut snack provided caucuses that has a reduced carbon footprint.
In the meantime, let the adults attend to the business of caucuses.

So the theory floated that week and today is that Romney is losing because of some great conspiracy between McCain and Huckabee to use Huckabee to split the conservative vote.

A look at super Tuesday victories should put that to rest, Huckabee won conservative states, Romney did not.
But lets put the theory to a test – I looked at all the 2004 red states.
Throwing out Arkansas and Arizona because of home field advantage for Huckabee and McCain (didn’t have to throw out any Romney because his home field is blue).

So I took a look at the rest:
In every red state that Huckabee won, Romney came in third.
How about red McCain states? Nope same result Romney in third.
In the few red states that Romney won, Huckabee came in second in each.

So who is hurting who?

It appears that the longer Romney stays in – the more he insure a McCain victory.
Add that to Fred work in S.C. and it looks like one group is doing there best to get McCain elected.

McCain has the Main Stream Media – Romney has money and the alternative media and yet Huckabee keeps beating them both. Maybe this grassroots thing really works.