If you're looking for pure-play opinion and link bait on sundry topics from Ann Coulter to Jimmy Carter/Hamas, you won't find it here. What you will find is in-depth (often unabashedly technical) writing about the election, the polls, the strategy, and the issues. Our analysis will track truth and stay true to the numbers. But it will self-consciously serve a greater purpose -- educating YOU to be your own political strategist and start doing something -- whether that's blogging about your local Congressional race or Democratic corruption in your state, organizing fundraising drives, and maybe even managing races or running for office yourself. Only a revival of civic engagement at the grassroots level will create a conservative future we want: one that is pork-free and robust in the defense of our country and its values. We can't call a switchboard and wait for Washington to fix the mess. We have to do it ourselves, from the ground up, in every state.
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We don't think this alone will solve the activism gap. Anyone who tells you that they alone have the answer is fooling you. This is not "the Daily Kos of the right." What we're hoping to do is create momentum and an intellectual framework for action -- because action ultimately starts with narratives and ideas. We want grassroots conservatives and libertarians to start believing that they can make a difference again -- a sense all too many have lost.
Only you - and not some well-funded 527 -- can bring the movement into the future. Only when grassroots conservative have a direct stake in the future of the party are we effective. The Next Right is about creating a vision for a 21st century Republican Party and conservative movement.

Fire officials say a small brush fire Monday evening in Port St. Lucie likely started when a teenage girl went into the woods to burn love letters.

St. Lucie Fire District Deputy Chief Tom Whitley said the quarter-acre fire in the vacant lot at 2266 SW Natema Road did not damage any structures, and firefighters quickly were able to get it under control. The fire investigator later determined it started when the teen wanted to destroy some love letters and set them on fire.

On a serious note, Southeast Florida has a brushfire problem at present. A St. Lucie County air medic and his family being just one story of people who have lost their homes. The local media has been giving large amounts of print space and air time to the fires. Why do people then go outside to burn things?

Hat tip- South Florida Daily Blog

With great fanfare and much bloviating and boasting, Congress passed -- by huge, veto-proof margins -- a measure suspending additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a stockpile of about 700 million barrels of oil. Currently, the government buys about 70,000 barrels a day and sells about the same, keeping the stock "fresh." (Why a product that's been sitting in the ground for millions of years has an apparent "shelf life" is something I don't quite understand, but that's what they do.)

For comparison, the United States uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day. That means that the Reserve has enough oil to keep the United States going for 33 days -- presuming we change nothing about our way of life AND we use nothing but the Reserve, two extremely unlikely events. A bit more relevant number is 0.33 percent -- that's how much more oil that is available for consumers with the cessation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve suspending its stock-rotation plan.

If that was all that Congress was planning on doing, I wouldn't be too upset. This move is pretty much nothing, and "doing nothing" is usually the wisest move for the government to make when it comes to messing around with the economy. But it's an election year, and since we can't feed Christians to lions any more (throwing them to the ACLU often leads to similar results, but is less entertaining) , the mob's blood lust must be sated somehow.

So the Democrats are going after Big Oil.

Maybe I'm just too simple, but I just can't wrap my head around the logic here. Someone please tell me where I'm wrong:

1) The biggest component right now in the skyrocketing price of gas is the skyrocketing price of crude oil.

2) The people who set the price of the oil -- the oil producing countries, mainly represented by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) -- are the ones who are making out like bandits in this whole mess.

3) Big Oil doesn't sell crude oil, it buys it and refines it into useful stuff. This means that a rise in crude oil prices doesn't directly translate into money in their pockets.

4) Big Oil's record profits are almost entirely based on their having consolidated. While the numbers of their profits have gone up, their profitability -- as measured by their profits as a percentage of their total income -- has pretty much stayed the same. In fact, their rate of return is actually considered pretty mundane for big companies.

So, the Democrats' proposed solution to this? Shoot the messenger! Beat the crap out of the middleman!

I exaggerate, but only slightly. Here's how the Boston Globe chooses to describe their plan:

A Democratic proposal to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies, roll back tax breaks for the industry, and provide new protections against price-gouging is expected to face a GOP-led filibuster when it reaches the Senate floor as early as next week.

It's simple. The Democrats know they can't bully and threaten the oil-producing countries, who are the ones making the big bucks right now, but they can hassle the oil companies. It's a variant of the old song: "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." Or, in this case, if you can't beat up the guy who's causing you problems, beat up someone who's within reach.

Let's look at these proposals:

1) Impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

As I noted, there are two ways of measuring profits: actual dollars, or percentage of total income. If Congress decides to put a cap on the actual dollars the oil companies can claim as profit, then watch the tax lawyers have multiple orgasms all over the place as they do everything they can think of to cut back that profits. bonuses for employees and executives, buying new equipment and companies, and all sorts of dodges that haven't even been invented yet. I'll go out on a limb and say that after the first year, it will be almost miraculous if a single oil company pays a dime in "windfall profits."

2) Roll back tax breaks for the industry.

Tax breaks are the traditional "carrot" part of government influence on economic policy. These tax breaks are, for the most part, intended to encourage companies to do things that don't, on their own, make economic sense. In short, they're the government saying "we want you to do certain things you wouldn't do on your own, so we'll pay you to do it." As I understand it, this involves things like researching alternate forms of energy, finding new sources of oil, and improving energy efficiency.

In other words, the kinds of things that reduce our oil consumption and cut the costs of maintaining our way of life.

So, why not get rid of them, just when we need those sorts of things the most?

3) Provide new protections against price-gouging.

This should be most entertaining. Consumers most directly feel the pinch at the gas pump, so it's usually the gas stations that feel their wrath. But as I understand it, they don't like high gas prices, either. They get told what they can charge for gas by their suppliers, and it's usually set as a certain price above what they pay. In other words, they make just as much money off $4.00/gallon gas as they did off $1.00/gallon gas.

But when gas prices get too high, people buy less. That means that higher gas prices mean gas stations make less money.

If there is any real "price-gouging" going on here, it's at the supply point. It's the folks selling the crude oil that are making the big bucks based on the current prices, and Congress can't do squat about them.

Actually, that's not true. There are quite a few things that Congress could do about the suppliers of oil, but that would require something too closely resembling courage, and we can't have that. Things like:

1) Easing restrictions on producing more domestic oil.

2) Cutting back the number of "regional blends" of gasoline required, to make the existing fuel supply more flexible in response to regional crises.

3) Giving Iran a good bitch-slap and telling them to knock it off. Right now, every now and then they stage some sort of military "incident" in the Persian Gulf that makes the oil-producers nervous, and that's always good for a few bucks' hike in the price of a barrel of oil. And since Iran is an oil exporter itself, it's to their benefit to keep tossing out these little scares.

4) INCREASE tax breaks for companies that work on reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Of course, these are all fairly minor measures. They don't address the real problem here: an increase in the global demand for oil.

China and India, just to name two nations, are experiencing huge jumps in their oil consumption. They are now competing with us to buy oil. And as anyone who knows anything about economics knows (I just barely qualify here), if you have more people wanting something and willing to pay for it, then the price will go up to pretty much "whatever people are willing to pay."

All that, though, is irrelevant. Common sense is always the first victim when Congress gets involved, especially in an election year. At those times, actually fixing problems takes a distant back seat to appearing to do something.

It's the ultimate triumph of style over substance, of what Billy Crystal lampooned with his Fernando, who said "it is more important to look marvelous than to be marvelous."

God help us. Mark Twain said it best: "no man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session."

Assuming Hillary Clinton wins Kentucky (which appears to be a lock) she will have won 7 of the 10 primaries held since Feb. 20. Going into the final four primaries (after Kentucky) she has the chance to bump that number to 11 out of the last 14 primaries. Even if she were to split the final four contests that would be 9 of the last 14 primaries.

Clinton since Feb. 20th.

Ohio primary
Rhode Island primary
Texas primary
Pennsylvania primary
Indiana primary
West Virginia primary

Obama since Feb. 20th.

Texas caucuses
Vermont primary
Wyoming caucuses
Mississippi primary
Guam caucuses (by one vote)
North Carolina primary

Remaining

Kentucky primary
Oregon primary
Puerto Rico primary
Montana primary
South Dakota primary

If you put all (or even most) of those remaining primaries in the Clinton column Obama doesn't look like a man marching his way to a nomination, but rather a candidate on cruise control trying to play out the clock. Clinton's best hope is to show that the Obama "four corners" offense doesn't look much like the heyday of Obamania. Sports is littered with examples of teams who let off the gas too early then couldn't reignite their powerhouse offenses when their opponent made a furious comeback. It's a long-shot, but it just might be the only realistic path to the nomination left for Clinton.

Of course she'll have to change the media and her parties script of Obama inevitability, but if she keeps winning they might just do that for her. Super delegates are, for the most part, politicians or political types who are by nature inclined to head in the direction of the prevailing winds. Change the weather and you just might change the totals...

Many of those super delegates were for Hillary before they were against her. Her challenge will be to flip the flip-flopper's one more time based on Obama's record since the Potomac Primaries.

American Idol is down to the final three so they're going to haul out the judge/contestant/producers choice of songs format again where each of the three sings one song pick for them by one of the judges, one of their own choosing, and one the show producers pick for them. As the suspense of the show has completely worn on my I'm going to attempt to give my impressions of the show without the benefit of actually having watched the show, nor reading anything about the performances.

If you're thinking. "hey that's not right," you are correct, but really the wheels are coming off Idol in a hurry. The problem for Idol is that the format is so ridged and, frankly, dull they're going to have to burn down the house to fix what ails the show. Because the contestants are more and more robotic there's less and less interesting storyline apart from what Paula's drug of choice is for the week or whether Randy can add another critique to his very small collection of cliche critiques.

What's so interesting about the aging of Idol is that the much older Survivor is coming off one of its best seasons ever. The formula of the game gets minor tweaks every season, but the real reason the season was such a joy was that the contestants (half all-stars, half fans) were interesting, dynamic, controversial, and engineered several of the greatest blindsides the game had ever seen. Idol, especially this season, traded interesting if occasionally wildly inconsistent contestants for a collection of boring ringers and the resulting monotony has ratings sinking like the real estate market.

Anyway, here's my assessment of the performances I haven't yet seen.

The Top Two
1. David Cook


2. David Archuleta

The Soon To Be Departed

3. Syesha Mercado

That order lines up with my overall season order as well. What I'm imagining happened on the show was that David Cook had two really good songs and one not so great tune; little David had one really good song, on really weird song, and one so-so song; and that Syesha had several decent, if entirely unmemorable performances. Syesha, I'm imagining, really showed that her future isn't on a concert stage, but on the Broadway stage. She's earned her way into the final three, but it's really going to be a two man show for the finale.

So how close (or far off) was I?

Okay, how about this one:

Q: How many plaintiffs' lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Three. One to climb the ladder. One to shake it. One to sue the ladder company.

* * *
Speaking of lawyers and tort lawsuits:

Bush administration crafts rules to limit tort lawsuits

Faced with a hostile Congress, the Bush administration has found another, quieter way to make it more difficult for Democrat plaintiffs' attorneys to file lawsuits against businesses for allegedly-faulty products: It's rewriting the bureaucratic rulebook.

Pretty crafty of Bush & Co., eh?

Continuing:

Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agencies governing just about everything Americans use: Rx drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.

Decried by left-wing consumer advocates and embraced by industry and pro-economy conservative groups, the agencies' use of their rule-making authority represents the administration's final act in a long-standing drive to shield companies from vexatious and ruinous lawsuits by Democrat-sponsoring plaintiffs' lawyers.

That's true, Ross Perot, presidents and their administrations have vast and often unilateral powers. Go figure.

There's more:

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will wade into the issue of federal preemption as it relates to lawsuits and prescription drug labeling. A pharmaceutical company defending itself against a lawsuit is contending the suit is barred because the FDA had approved the warning label on its drug. The company is trying to overturn a $6.8 million award given to a woman whose arm had to be amputated after a negligent doctor inadvertently injected the company's anti-nausea medication into an artery.

Well, since the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of businesses and against Democrat lawyers over 80% of the time since Justice Alito replaced Justice O'Connor, I don't think it's all that presumptuous to presume the drug industry will prevail in that case.

* * *
Incidentally, liberal law professors and their young sycophants might be inclined to project their leftism here under the guise of "states' rights." It's a weak argument; cynical and disingenuous too. There are the Commerce and Supremacy Clauses. They're right there -- in the U.S. Constitution. Plus the doctrines of preemption and the so-called "dormant Commerce Clause" have been on the books longer than Robert Byrd has been a racist.

* * *
Here's a link to the AP article on which this entry is based. For obvious reasons it's couched in far different terms. The author and editor are biased and their agenda is tissue-paper transparent. Yet the article still is worth a perusal. There's lots of interesting info there -- especially between and behind the lines.

* * *

West Virginia Democrat Primary

-- Among those who earn $100,000 per year or more, Obama received 39%. Among those who earn less than $100,000 per annum, however, Obama was squashed 65-28.

-- Voters were asked whether they consider themselves liberals, moderates or conservatives:

Liberals: Clinton, 64-33.
Moderates: Clinton, 67-27.
Conservatives: Clinton, 58-27.

-- Voters were asked how often they attend religious services:

"Weekly" attendance in church: Clinton, 62-28.
"Occasional" attendance: Clinton, 66-28.
"Never" attend church: Clinton, 64-34.

-- Voters were asked whether they would be satisified with either, both, or only one of the candidates:

Forty-four percent said they'd only be satisfied if Clinton is the nominee.

One in 10 said they'd not be satisfied if either Clinton or Obama get the nomination.

... 75 percent of the seniors headed to Dallas community colleges can't read above an 8th grade level, and others can't add or subtract[.]

"This percentage is much too high," said Dr. Joan Rodriguez, who teaches developmental reading at El Centro.

And Rachel Lucas points out a grammatical error... which has since magically been fixed in the article!

What is funny is that clearly, the reporter who wrote the article can relate to the subject matter. For example, here's a paragraph in its entirety:

Showing over the last three years, an average of 75 percent of the DISD students enrolled in classes took at least one developmental education course.

And how about this:

...principals are given a $10,000 bonus based upon how they're students do on TAKS scores.

Nice work there, reporter person. Maybe you could sit in on one of those remedial writing classes?

I remember sitting in my English classes in college, listening to the professor tell me the difference between "there", "their", and "they're". I would sit there, bored, as he taught us when to use a comma or a colon. And as he would explain grammatical concepts I learned around fourth grade, I would try to figure out if it was possible to commit suicide via notebook paper. It was clearly the less painful route.

I guess they're all doomed to Irak now. Right, Jawn Carry??

Right?

Um... I guess not. Michelle Malkin has an ad the DCCC ran smearing a Republican, Greg Davis, in the Mississippi congressional race, linking him to the founder of the KKK. Check out the ad:

Only problem? The, uh, DCCC got their facts wrong.

[T]he DCCC says "Greg Davis wanted to honor the founder of the KKK with a statue in Southaven" and also said the statue was of "the first Grand Wizard." But in reality, the statue was of Jefferson Davis who was not the founder and never in the KKK. In fact, another place that has a statue of Jefferson Davis is the United States Capitol Building. Jefferson Davis is one of the two statues representing Mississippi, along with James Z. George. Furthermore, Senator Thad Cochran uses the desk of Jefferson Davis in the Capitol, one of two "heritage desks" (the other goes to Massachusetts Senior Senator and belonged to Daniel Webster).

ROM further notes that the "founder of the KKK statue" (Nathan Bedford Forrest) was wanted by the Mayor of Horn Lake.

So the DCCC has attacked the wrong mayor for the wrong statue.

I always love when Democrats pull out the KKK card, anyways... considering Robert Byrd's illustrious history with the Klan and all. How do they really have any room to talk? They don't seem to mind his direct involvement with the Klan, but they'd lie about Greg Davis, linking him to the KKK, just to win an election?

And they claim that they're the ones fighting for minorities. Go figure.

In presidential election news, Hillary is expected to win has won West Virginia. Moonbattery points out how democrats, of course, are throwing a hissy fit. Because if you don't vote for the Obamamessiah, you're a racist, and don't you forget it.

The whole piece whines about how white voters are racist for leaning towards Clinton, and how the Obamamessiah is the bigger man for not getting involved in such petty identity politics. Like, um, the kind that this writer is engaging in.

So, tonight the polls will close and Mrs. Clinton will have easily collected 99 percent of the white vote in West Virginia. She will crow about her electability in a smug but meaningless victory speech on a stage featuring dozens of "hard-working Americans, white Americans" standing behind her waving flags.

Bill and Chelsea will grimace through it all, knowing that the jig is up and that the dream of the next phase of the Clinton dynasty has come to an ignoble end.

While no Confederate battle flags will be visible, they will feel it in the air. Mrs. Clinton's greatest victory will be a triumph of the kind of identity politics that makes a nation smaller.

Still, she will resist the urge to dip Skoal and spit juice into a coffee can on live television.

There will be plenty of time for that kind of nonsense when she campaigns in Kentucky. There, everyone expects her to continue her total dominance of the rural white working-class vote while perfecting the accent she used to sport back in Little Rock.

And anyways, why does someone's race matter? It's the color of their skin. It doesn't affect their brain or how they think. It doesn't affect their policies or politics. And those are the things that concern me when it comes to who will be running this country.

So the whiny race-baiters out there can rest assured that most Americans who don't vote for Obama aren't voting for him because they're racist... they aren't voting for him because they can't stand his politics.

I guess the Dems just can't grasp the concept of white Americans who aren't racist.

Here are some of the better replies.

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) "Of course. Big house, big car, not much to do. Why not?"

However

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) "No. I don't like going to funerals."

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) "I plan to stick with my current job until I get the hang of it."

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) "I'd say, 'Please read the Constitution.' I wasn't born in America; I can't be VP."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) "My name has been discussed partly because I'm a female and it's always nice to balance things in gender ... I've discussed it with my kids. My 16-year-old thinks it's a fabulous idea because he thinks we probably couldn't find any better residence in Washington, D.C., than the Naval Observatory. That's the fun part of the question, but I think anybody, if you were seriously asked, I think you have to give it very real and genuine consideration. I don't expect to be asked, but if I were I would give it real and genuine consideration."

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) "I would say 'No, Hillary.' "

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) "I'm not the right choice for the Democrats because they're going to carry California. So they should really look elsewhere. And I can really help them right here in the Senate as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee."

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) "If I were asked, I would say, 'You're out of your mind.' "

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) "Does that include any sports picks or anything like that? ... I would certainly consider it."

Oh and the asteroid quote comes from...................

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) "The chances of that are so remote that I'm more likely to be hit by an asteroid."

Hat tip- Below the Beltway

She was nice enough to include a scan of her New York OTB ticket (shown below) to back up her claim. Judi "predicted" that horses Big Brown (20), Eight Belles (5) and Denis of Cork (16) would be the winning order and supposedly won $1,619 on the $6 bet. Now, of course, she's offering her services to the media in preparation for The Preakness Stakes and the The Belmont Stakes.

Leaving aside the fact that Big Brown was a heavy favorite and Eight Belles (who was put down on the track after the race) was widely seen as the most likely to give Big Brown a run, take a look at the scan a little closer.

Why exactly would a psychic have to make TWO trifecta bets (and two other parlay bets) to produce a single win? Don't you think her publicist might have explained that sending a ALL the betting slips might not be such a good idea?

Picking front-runners doesn't make you a psychic. Hoffman should know all about that because six months ago she predicted Hillary to nudge out Obama and the Patriots to win the Super Bowl...

But aside from that, the old fable that the 'nice' candidate wins the White House is suspect at best. Sure, Eisenhower and Reagan and Jimmy Carter were all well known for their charm and high-watt smiles, but who can seriously claim the same for Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon? Was Bill Clinton really a nicer guy than George H.W. Bush? And what about the election in 2000? Clearly, George W. Bush was a nicer guy than Al Gore, even Mr. Gore admitted the same, but Gore actually received more votes in the Popular tally than did Bush. The theory just doesn't hold up.

Speaking to voters in the Appalachian state, she said: "All the kitchen table issues that everybody talks to me about are ones that the next president can actually do something about, if he actually cares about it." Realising her faux pas, she added: "More likely if she cares about it!"

Wizbang readers don't need to remind me that I predicted Hillary being elected President this year. Can I revise that prediction just like the Hurricane forecaster William Gray does?

Hat tip- James Joyner at OTB who doesn't see this as a sign of Sen. Clinton quitting her Presidential bid. I agree.

Hillary Rodham Clinton hinted she might wrap up her campaign as early as next week.

"Thank you for caring so much about our country," Clinton said in a video sent yesterday to supporters. "And now it's on to West Virginia and Kentucky and Oregon, and we'll stay in touch."

Not mentioned in her apparent video swan song are the final three primaries, in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, to be held after next week - leading to speculation that she might pull the plug on her campaign after what are expected to be strong wins in West Virginia and Kentucky.

But a new poll says 64 percent of Democrats nationwide, want her to stay in the race.

Even 42 percent of Obama's supporters in the ABC News/ Washington Post poll, said they don't want Clinton to throw in the towel.

If she's got this much party grass roots support to stay in the primary even though she can't win, this combined with a massive win in West Virginia could offer her a new way to spin her defeat. She's done her best to drag Obama under the bus with her, but if she drops out when a majority of Dems thinks she should stay in, then she could play the martyr card: "Look at Hillary, she's doing what's best for the party. Isn't she wonderful?" Could she do this successfully in spite of the fact that she played so dirty, so brass knuckles, that she almost undermined her party single handedly?

Answer: don't underestimate the Clintons.