1. Natural Constituiences

2. The Silver Lining to L’Affair DSK

3. Tell the White House We’re Running on Empty

4. In A Statement That Surprised No One. Now With More Words Than Necessary to Explain it All.

5. Jan Schakowsky (D, IL): SEALs are criminals!

6. Obama’s Oil Drilling Subterfuge

1. Natural Constituiences

I have thought a lot more about Mike Huckabee’s departure from the race on Saturday and then Newt Gingrich’s Meet the Press appearance Sunday. They raise a few questions in my mind that I want to explore here. Admittedly, a post like this pulls from my own biases in how I see the candidates, but I’m going to do my best to be as objective as possible, even when dealing with a guy like Huntsman.I just think it is helpful to explore natural constituencies to see who is fighting over what.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. The Silver Lining to L’Affair DSK

The abrupt arrest of IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sexual assault against an employee at the New York hotel where he was staying are being treated as shocking in France. This is a “coup de tonnerre,” a bolt from the blue, not to mention a body blow to the socialist party he was to represent in the upcoming elections. Everyone in Paris claims to be amazed, shaken–and doing some soul searching this Monday morning.Very few, however, are protesting “DSK”’s innocence. But if the news really came as such a jarring surprise, shouldn’t there be a clamour of disbelief? The shameful fact is that this news was not so much a shock as a long time coming.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Tell the White House We’re Running on Empty

The summer of 2010 was supposed to be the Summer of Recovery. That’s what President Obama told us. It wasn’t and now nearly a year later, unemployment remains unacceptably high. With gas prices at nearly $4.00 a gallon and on the rise, the forecast for the summer of 2011 isn’t looking much better.America is $14 trillion in debt. We’re running trillion dollar deficits which President Obama says are necessary to dig us out of the recession. The problem is Hope Isn’t Hiring and the unemployment rate recently ticked back up to 9.0%.Today, the number of unemployed Americans stands at nearly 14 million. Finding a job in the Obama Economy is tough enough as it is, but with gas at nearly $4.00 a gallon, even getting to the interview has become a challenge.Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. In A Statement That Surprised No One. Now With More Words Than Necessary to Explain it All.

In a statement that surprised absolutely no one, Donald Trump decided not to run for President. Now here are more words than are necessary to explain it all.Few took it seriously, though I was happy to participate in an interview with him tomorrow that he abruptly canceled Friday.In any event, I actually do think he took the idea to run seriously. We can all say that we knew he wasn’t going to run, but in gearing up for tomorrow’s cancelled interview I talked to several people close to him and all of them were convinced Trump was actually taking the prospect of running seriously.Several things happened over the last week though that I think got him to the conclusion we all knew he’d arrive at quicker than I or probably he thought he’d arrive.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Jan Schakowsky (D, IL): SEALs are criminals!

Rep. Schakowsky, attempting to explain why photos of the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden would not be released, had this to say:“These are pictures of a violent crime scene. This is a dead person. A dead Osama bin Laden,” she said.Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. Obama’s Oil Drilling Subterfuge

Many liberals in the media are expressing shock over Obama’s apparent willingness to increase oil production. We all know that he is full of …, I mean ethanol, and they do too.Those of you who were befuddled at the news that Obama will ‘expand drilling’ in Alaska are not missing anything. Obama has pulled this political chicanery a number of times. Whenever a specific proposal that he so adamantly opposes becomes too popular to ignore, he announces his support for it by promising to implement inconsequential reforms. To that end, he declared during his Saturday radio address that he is “directing the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, while respecting sensitive areas, and to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic”.So we are to believe that the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and ANWR, all of which are impounded from drilling leases by the administration, are more sensitive than Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve? Caribou, baby, Caribou in ANWR; drill, baby, drill in ANPR? Think again.Please click here for the rest of the post.