The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave

So it seems that finally, the Democrat primary race is winding down, with Obama the presumptive nominee. Obama is shifting his focus to McCain, as Hillary battles on, seemingly unaware that the powers that be have already counted her out. But of course she does realize that she’s down for the count. The question on everyone’s mind is…’Why does she continue to campaign?’

One explanation is that she’s in it now for 2012, which of course benefits McCain. The other….scarier explanation is that she is gunning for a high profile spot in Obama’s cabinet; possibly his VP pick. This of course would be a nightmare scenario for Republicans because it would unite two Democrat constituencies that were previously at odds with each other. This of course is the smartest and most obvious move, but one that insiders are saying Obama will resist because of his dislike for Hillary.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that according to Bill Clinton, Hillary and McCain are “close”. Remember this story from January?:

“She and John McCain are very close,” Clinton said. “They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history, and they’re afraid they’d put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other.”

Sens. McCain and Clinton last met publicly at an ABC debate earlier January, when presidential candidates of both parties shared the same stage. The two were seen exchanging pleasantries, and a Clinton side said she told the Arizona senator he’d done a “good job” staging a comeback in New Hampshire. He asked that she say hello to Bill Clinton for him.

I don’t think she has any warm feelings for Obama. Still, I tend to agree with Charles Krauthammer who predicts that this is what is coming:

There’s only one remaining chapter in this fascinating spectacle. Negotiating the terms of Hillary’s surrender. After which we will have six months of watching her enthusiastically stumping for Obama, denying with utter conviction GOP charges that he is the out of touch, latte-sipping elitist she warned Democrats against so urgently in the last, late leg of her doomed campaign.

At any rate, she’s making Democratic leaders nervous because she’s forcing Obama to spend his precious time and money on his primary fight against her, instead of the general election fight against McCain. She’s also been hitting him where it hurts with her “late leg of her doomed campaign” urgent warnings to the superdelegates: He’s not as electable as she is.

Meanwhile, on the McCain front, a couple of positive developments:

1. He seems to have a kick-ass top adviser in Mark Salter, who continues to impress.

2. Rush Limbaugh seems to be coming around.

Now if only we can get Ann Coulter on board.

Introducing…”The Next Right”

The Next Right is the brainchild of Republican Wonder-Boy, Patrick Ruffini:

The Next Right is the place for wired activists to build a new Republican Party and conservative movement. As a community-driven grassroots action website for the right, we’ll feature in-depth political analysis, on-the-ground reports, and strategic discussion and debate.

Go sign up, and get plugged in. As Beth at MVRWC says, it’s about time we conservatives stopped whining and complaining. It’s time we got as organized as the nutroots on these intertubes, so we can be as effective as those squeaky wheels are.

McCain/Schrute?

Who’s this Dwight Schrute person? I’ve never heard of him. But MDefl at Rightpundits has, and is endorsing him for McCain’s VP pick. McCain announced his choice of Schrute as his VP pick on the Daily Show, yesterday:

McCain doesn’t seem to know who he is either, since he had to read his name off of a piece of paper.

UPDATE:

As for McCain/Clinton….please! I can’t believe anyone is even taking that seriously.

Turning The Page

Michelle Obama said in a recent interview that she wants to “turn the page” from the Reverend Wright controversy. Hoo-boy, I don’t blame her.

Instead, she prefers to talk about education:

“Let’s not elect somebody who has been there and hasn’t done it,” Michelle Obama said in a fairly clear reference to Clinton. She said education was the issue that most concerns parents and her husband is the only one who can make changes there.

“It’s going to take us being, as a nation, deeply passionate and angry about the failing education for all kids,” she said. “When was the last time we heard some really solid questions for these candidates on education in a debate? You know all about the issues in our personal lives, but … education is the thing we should be angry about.”

Tom Maguire, of Just One Minute, (who’s been looking into Obama’s past work on an education board, created by Bill Ayers) jumped on that:

Obama and Ayers (a professor of education) worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for several years in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to reform Chicago’s public schools. The extent of their relationship is not clear, since Obama has been opaque on this topic both in a televised debate and at his website. However, Ayers was instrumental in founding the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and Obama was the group’s first chairman, so there is something being concealed there.

Read the whole thing. This story should be getting more play in the media.

More background here.

Barack Obama And Voter IDs

Bad news for Democrats!: The Supreme Court has just rejected the argument that strict voter ID laws “disenfranchise” voters, thus making voter fraud more difficult.

John Fund in the WSJ today, writes:

In ruling on the constitutionality of Indiana’s voter ID law – the toughest in the nation – the Supreme Court had to deal with the claim that such laws demanded the strictest of scrutiny by courts, because they could disenfranchise voters. All nine Justices rejected that argument.

Even Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the three dissenters who would have overturned the Indiana law, wrote approvingly of the less severe ID laws of Georgia and Florida. The result is that state voter ID laws are now highly likely to pass constitutional muster.

But this case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, also revealed a fundamental philosophical conflict between two perspectives rooted in the machine politics of Chicago. Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the decision, grew up in Hyde Park, the city neighborhood where Sen. Barack Obama – the most vociferous Congressional critic of such laws – lives now. Both men have seen how the Daley machine has governed the city for so many years, with a mix of patronage, contract favoritism and, where necessary, voter fraud.

Justice Stevens has a history (as both a lawyer, and a judge) of trying to root out corruption in state government. Apparently, Obama is quite comfortable with it:

Barack Obama has approached Chicago politics differently. He came to the city as a community organizer in the 1980s and quickly developed a name for himself as a litigator in voting cases.

In 1995, then GOP Gov. Jim Edgar refused to implement the federal “Motor Voter” law. Allowing voters to register using only a postcard and blocking the state from culling voter rolls, he argued, could invite fraud. Mr. Obama sued on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, and won. Acorn later invited Mr. Obama to help train its staff; Mr. Obama would also sit on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago, which frequently gave this group grants.

Acorn’s efforts to register voters have been scandal-prone. St. Louis, Mo., officials found that in 2006 over 1,000 addresses listed on its registrations didn’t exist. “We met twice with Acorn before their drive, but our requests completely fell by the wayside,” said Democrat Matt Potter, the city’s deputy elections director. Later, federal authorities indicted eight of the group’s local workers. One of the eight pleaded guilty last month.

Despite this record – and polls that show clear majorities of blacks and Hispanics back voter ID laws – Mr. Obama continues to back Acorn. They both joined briefs urging the Supreme Court to overturn Indiana’s law.

Last year, he put on hold the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky for a seat on the Federal Election Commission. Mr. von Spakovsky, as a Justice Department official, had supported a Georgia photo ID law.

In a letter to the Senate Rules Committee, Mr. Obama wrote that “Mr. von Spakovsky’s role in supporting the Department of Justice’s quixotic efforts to attack voter fraud raises significant questions about his ability to interpret and apply the law in a fair manner.” Of course, now an even stricter law than the one in Georgia has been upheld by the Supreme Court, removing Mr. Obama’s chief objection.

Ooooh, burrrrn.

The hold on the von Spakovsky nomination has left the Federal Election Commission with less than a quorum. As a result, the FEC can’t open new cases, hold public meetings, issue advisory opinions or approve John McCain’s receipt of public funding for the general election. Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims that, even without the von Spakovsky hold, filling the FEC’s vacancies will take “several months.”

Don’t anyone say Obama has been a do-nothing Senator. He’s had his little “victories”.

I can’t improve on John Fund’s conclusion:

So we have the irony of two liberal icons in sharp disagreement over yesterday’s Supreme Court decision. Justice Stevens, the real reformer, believes voter ID laws are justified to prevent fraud. Barack Obama, the faux reformer, hauls out discredited rhetoric that they disenfranchise voters.

Faux reformer indeed. Oh, and guess which player in all this, endorses Obama?

Hat tip: Lucianne

More on the Democrats and voter fraud, here.

Iranians For Obama

Well, is anyone surprised?

“I think people want him to win,” Shi’ite cleric Mehdi Karroubi, the reformist former parliament speaker defeated by Ahmadinejad in Iran’s 2005 presidential contest, told TIME.

It’s not only the policy expectations that account for Obama’s popularity: his Third World ethnic background and the Muslim faith of his father’s Kenyan family — even his middle name, Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a revered figure in the Shi’ite Islam practiced in Iran — offer points of affinity that some analysts believe could give Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the political cover to make a gesture of reconciliation to the country long decried in Tehran as “the Great Satan.”

They are divided on Hillary:

… largely basing their views on the record in the Middle East of her husband, who Iranians expect would effectively be her senior foreign policy adviser. Mohammed Atrianfar, an adviser to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, argues that Bill Clinton has a “peace-seeking image” among Iranians. Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, now a Hillary adviser, publicly accepted American responsibility for involvement in the 1953 coup in Iran and subsequent support for the repressive regime of the Shah. Iranian diplomats complain, however, that Clinton also imposed economic sanctions on Iran.

Yeah, I wonder if they’ve heard Hillary’s “I’ll obliterate them” comment, yet.

McCain makes them nervous:

…many consider McCain a hawk and fear his experiences as an American POW in the Vietnam War may hardwire him for hostility towards revolutionary governments. All Iranians seem aware of McCain’s “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” Beach Boys imitation, and many take it as an indication of his inclinations.

The choice for Iranian officials is clear:

But it’s Obama’s declared willingness to engage in “aggressive personal diplomacy” with the Iranian leadership that has generated the most interest among senior officials in Tehran, since this would mark a sea-change in Washington’s approach. “Obama is a man of engagement, a man of negotiations,” one Iranian official told TIME. Amir Mohebbian, an analyst close to Iranian conservative politicians, argues that “the mentality of Iranian decision makers is ready for that.” He adds: “I think that the coming of Obama — maybe, maybe — helps to solve this problem, but it needs bravery, from both sides.”

I’m sure they’re chomping at the bit.

Hearing On Phil Kline’s Landmark Case Against KS Planned Parenthood To Be Held Thursday

Phil Kline is the Republican “pro life, crusading” DA who has been investigating the Johnson County Planned Parenthood of Kansas since 2003. He was the KS Attorney General from January 2003 to January 2007. He lost his re-election for AG to the (now disgraced, and resigned) Paul Morrison in November 2006.

The case has been filled with road-blocks like this:

Kansas City Star:

District Judge Stephen Tatum scheduled the hearing for 10 a.m. after a state agency last week filed a motion to quash a subpoena from District Attorney Phill Kline. The subpoena seeks certified copies of reports regarding late-term abortions from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

The health department contends the records contain confidential patient information that cannot be turned over.

The 107-count complaint, which Kline filed in October, accuses Planned Parenthood of forging and failing to maintain abortion records and of performing illegal late-term abortions.

Human Events did a good job covering Kline’s uphill battle back in January:

The legal wars between Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and Kline boil down to two simple points: first, Kline alleges — and has taken to a grand jury — evidence that Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri routinely fails to report sexual abuse of children and its doctors perform illegal partial-birth abortions; second, that this particular Planned Parenthood — which denies all these charges — has, with its Kansas political and media allies, undertaken to discredit and destroy Kline.

If Kline is successful, he’ll be the first to bring down a Planned Parenthood operation on criminal charges.

Related:

Michelle Malkin exposes racism at Planned Parenthood clinics.

Hat tip: Crime Scene KC

Thursday News Round-Up

Surfing the net, this morning I’m coming across all sorts of interesting tidbits, so I’ve decided to just dump them in one big post, rather than several small ones.

For instance, I really don’t have any thing to add to this story that broke, today: Muqtada Al-Sadr is comatose in an Iranian hopital (hat tip: Ace)….other than: WOOT WOOT!!!

Then there’s this story about a bomb blast to a military recruitment station at Times Square. A person was seen on a bike, and “acting suspiciously” prior to the blast. Dr. Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report says the Kos Kidz are already blaming a right wing conspiracy. But as Rusty says, “Every one knows we on the right all drive gas guzzling SUVs”! See Ace for more details. Hot Air has the surveillance video.

UPDATE:

8 House Democrats got letters and a photo of the Times Square recruiting station in Manhattan before it was bombed this morning.

You will want to see, “Islam’s Ann Coulter”, Wafa Sultan debate a couple of Islamist goons on al-Jazeera, brought to us by MEMRI. How this intelligent woman can carry on a conversation with these troglodytes without her head exploding is beyond me.

Remember the Dallas Fox News investigative reporter, Rebecca Aguilar, who ambushed that 70 year old man in his car after he shot some intruders on his property? Well, she’s been canned. But she’s not going quietly:

Aguilar, who hired an attorney after the suspension, declined to say whether she’d take any legal action against Fox4. “Let me just put it this way,” she said. “I’m going to use any method I can to regain my reputation.”

Libertas brings us The Top Five Most Disturbing Films, and The Anti Jihadist Comic Book Hero.

Gateway Pundit has the pictures of Thousands Of Gazans Celebrating the Jerusalem school shooting. Normal people do not do this.

Smooth Stone has more on the school shooting: Muslim barbarian kills 10 innocent Israelis.

Barry, Out West has the hot YouTube video: “Obama, Building A Religion”. Don’t we know it.