From Fox News:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich plans to announce Thursday that he will begin raising money to test whether a bid for the Republican presidential nomination is feasible.

Spokesman Rick Tyler confirmed to Fox News that Gingrich is in the exploratory phase, which he will discuss at a news conference at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta…

In a lot of ways, Newt Gingrich is the most intelligent and knowledgeable man in American politics. A man of deep historical knowledge and a well-trained ability to take disparate events and facts and produce a coherent picture, Gingrich would be a President who could easily navigate through the troubles we have, and those which are rapidly brewing. But, can he be elected President?

Gingrich was once the hero, then the goat – defeated men are not usually turned to as leaders. Winston Churchill was an exception to this rule – suffering crushing, and partially undeserved, failure at an early age, he had to struggle for two decades to regain the stature needed to lead his nation. Most of the time, you don’t get two bites at the apple. Gingrich can overcome this, but it would take a near perfect campaign and several things out of his control breaking his way.

First and foremost, he’ll have to overcome lingering GOP doubts about him. He’s had his moral failings in the past (and they are, now, very much in the past – Gingrich has grown a great deal since leaving office as Speaker in this area) and that causes worry. No matter how long ago or how irrelevant to current events, Democrats will dredge up whatever mud they can. As a deeply polarizing figure in American politics, there is also the worry that Gingrich won’t be able to sufficiently appeal to Independents and disaffected Democrats to beat Obama. The final thing here is that Gingrich is a bit of yesterday’s news – there are a lot of stellar up-and-comers in the GOP whom Gingrich will have to elbow aside.

Supposing Gingrich does make it to the nomination, his problem will become one of how to attack Obama without offending people in the process. Don’t let our GOP anger over Obama fool you on this – Obama is still well-liked by the American people and while that may change by 2012, we have to presume that he’ll still have a reservoir of good will to draw upon. You don’t want to just hack away at Obama – you have to present him to the American people as a well meaning yet out of his depth President. A fine man, but no man to lead us out of this morass. All the while Gingrich is doing this, he’ll have to manfully stand up to the most nasty slanders imaginable against not just himself, but against everyone remotely connected to him. The nastiness will never (or, at least, almost never) come from Obama directly – but it will be relentless.

And then, with all that, Gingrich will have to lay out a compelling agenda for the American people. This is actually Gingrich’s greatest strength – his ability to create a narrative and explain to people why they should go his way. Any GOPer who thinks he or she can coast to victory on anti-Obama sentiment is likely to wind up disappointed. If it turns out there is 10% unemployment and inflation by October of 2012, that is fine – we’ll win it in a walkover…but don’t work on any such assumption. Work along the lines of things at least appearing to improve, with massive, pro-Obama propaganda in the MSM telling everyone that things are coming up roses. In such a scenario, only the strongest, most believable and most American sort of message will do. Whomever we nominate will have to commune with the shade of Ronald Reagan a great deal.

I wish Gingrich well in this. I’ll be delighted if he pulls it off – it would be nice to have someone who understands the United States and the world backwards and forwards as President. I don’t think he can do it, however. Time will tell.

No, I’m not kidding – from the Arizona Daily Star:

Border Patrol agents shot beanbags at a group of suspected bandits before the men returned fire during a confrontation in a remote canyon, killing agent Brian Terry with a single gunshot, records show…

Beanbags? BEANBAGS? We’re defending our border from ruthless and well-armed gangsters with beanbags…we’re not even bringing a knife to a gunfight; we’re bringing a child’s toy.

Armed men crossing a border illegally are not coming over to do nice things to people – they are invading our country with the intent of doing harm. The merest fact that they are armed and on our side of the border relieves our forces for any concern about whether lethal force is justified – it is, immediately and without warning. We have a fricking government for the primary purpose of defending us against outsiders…and our government is sending men armed with beanbags to fight criminals armed with AK-47’s.

This is criminal negligence. Whoever thought up the idea of beanbags must be immediately discharged. Laws must be passed to make it clear that deadly force is always authorized when dealing with armed men crossing the border. No more of this nonsense – no more dead border patrol agents because some PC pinhead decided that armed gangsters crossing our border deserve a second chance…

UPDATE: A BATF agent says he was ordered to allow cross-border gun running. Our nation is being run by people who have no grasp of what the world is like.

A little bit of the harsh realities of economics – and actually being reported on in the MSM! Astounding! From Bloomberg:

Employers in the U.S. announced more job cuts in February than in the same month last year, led by a surge at government agencies.

Planned firings increased 20 percent to 50,702 last month from February 2010, the first year-over-year gain since May 2009, according to a report today from Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Announcements at federal, state and local government offices almost tripled from last year…

…Dismissals of government workers may contribute to a slowdown in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. Combined with the highest gasoline prices in two years, the threat of a pause in purchases may already be causing retailers, which had the second-biggest number of announcements last month, to pare payrolls, said Challenger.

“If gasoline tops $4 per gallon in the coming weeks, consumers may be forced to make significant changes to their spending habits,” said Challenger. “At this stage of the recovery, that could be an extremely damaging setback.”…

Who would have thought that massive, unsustainable levels of government spending for years would eventually have a negative impact? And, my goodness, how was anyone to know that things like revolution in the middle east could disrupt supplies and confidence? Geesh, its not like anyone has been out there demanding greater domestic oil production. I’m sure that Obama’s cracker-jack economic team is on this – and I wonder if a bit more spending and maybe some windmill subsidies will get us out of the mess.

This is what we get, boys and girls, for years of irresponsibility. Its going to get increasingly difficult to get out of the mess – the longer we put off the deep cuts in spending and the reforms necessary to encourage making, mining and growing things, the worse the crisis will get, and the longer it will take to get out of it.

UPDATE: Gallup poll has unemployment at 10.3%.

From Ann Althouse:

…as the protest drags on and protesters are sleep-deprived and frustrated and tired of nothing happening but standing around chanting and listening to drum-beating for hours on end, logic and proportion is flopping away. There was some serious aggression yesterday.

You saw Meade’s video where 2 over-aggressive protesters interrogated a couple of nice ladies who drove into Madison just to stand quietly, in the sea of Walker-haters, and hold their pro-Walker signs. In the video, you can hear that the 2 protesters are not making that much sense, and when Meade tries to mediate — meadeate — for them, other protesters in the area close in on Meade.

There’s very tense confrontation, and it flips into paranoia and incoherence…

One does begin to wonder – how does it end? How can the Democrats get out of this mess they’ve landed themselves in? No matter how you slice it, the GOP holds the actual power in the State of Wisconsin – that cannot change before November of 2012, and I don’t think these people would be able to keep it up quite that long.

Contrast the two groups. Democrats show up day after day after day and keep telling themselves the same things over and over and over again. Republicans showed up for one day, had a blast, let their guys know they’ve got their backs, and then went home. Our troops are still fresh for the fight and if the GOP needs some more bucking up, it can happen next weekend. Its got to get a bit tiresome to keep eating pizza and sleeping on the floor…though, then again, maybe that is how most Democrats live?

At any rate, this has been endlessly entertaining and the best part of it is that we win, no matter what. You see, the GOP actually won the election and thus holds all the power in Wisconsin – Democrats can bang the drum all they want, but eventually at least one Fleebagger will have to come home, and then its game over.

Naturally – from the Jerusalem Post:

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said on Tuesday that Jews and Zionists are “trying to push the US into war” and that “Zionists dominate the US government and banks.”

Farrakhan, 77, made the comments at the Nation of Islam’s annual meeting near Chicago…

…President Obama,” Farrakhan said, “if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Gaddafi and you go in and kill him and his sons, as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons… I’m warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves.”

Farrakhan called Muammar Gaddafi “my brother and my friend.”…

The natural inclination here is to parachute Farrakhan in to Tripoli and let him fight to defend his brother and friend. I mean, come now, Louis, if Gaddafi is really all you’re cracking him up to be, certainly he’s worth fighting for, right?

More importantly, this rank manifestation of the Jew baiting should forever be kept in mind when discussing not just Farrakhan, but all those who seek to blames “Jews” or “Zionists” for what is going on, even if they couch it in more politically correct terminology than Farrakhan does. All Farrakhan is doing is being more blunt than those who are, for instance, calling upon Israeli to give up East Jerusalem or allow a “right of return” to a million Arabs who have never set foot in Israel – Farrakhan is just putting on his Julius Streicher hat in public, others still do it from behind a curtain.

Picking out someone to hate and then whipping up feeling against them is an old and, unfortunately, very successful tactic. Because of its power, such tactics must be ferreted out early on and loudly condemned by all decent people. For far too long we have allowed people like Farrakhan and his more demure colleagues to poison the well. It isn’t good enough to disclaim hateful intent, one has to actually attack and thwart those who are spreading hatred – and our liberals, especially, should keep that in mind the next time they are offering excuses for a Farrakhan, or permitting themselves to go along with some outlandish story from a propaganda mill…

Absolute idiots – from Reuters:

Senate Democrats are preparing a spending bill that yields no ground to House Republicans who are seeking deep cuts in government spending, a Democratic aide said on Wednesday.

The spending bill would essentially keep government spending at its current level through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, factoring in $4 billion in noncontroversial cuts that were included in a temporary spending measure passed earlier in the day.

Do you need any further proof that the Democrats just don’t give a darn about America? All that Obama BS about shared sacrifices and spending cuts? Either he’s a complete idiot who just reads what is put in front of him (this is a distinct possibility) or he was lying with malice aforethought. You pick; and those are the only two options.

We’re bankrupt – and the House GOP cuts (the $60 billion-odd additional they want through September 30th) are modest. Yet Democrats won’t even go that far – we’re talking about cutting around one cent out of every dollar to be spent this year…and Democrats won’t go for it.

Why? Because their power and wealth are based upon government spending – and their power and wealth are far more important than the fate of Americans and the future of the United States. Seriously, grasp this concept: if there is a conflict between a Democrat’s person desires and the needs of the United States, personal desires will always come out on top. The nation can die, but Democrats must continue to be in power and wealth.

Go ahead, Democrats – you go on ahead and fight us on this. Come November of 2012, we’ll show you where it leads.

From Fox News:

The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, ruled Wednesday that members of the renegade Westboro Baptist Church have a constitutionally protected right to protest military funerals even though their demonstrations are widely despised and deplored…

And there isn’t much we can do to stop them – you really do have a right to speak your mind in this nation, even if you abuse it.

Here’s an idea, though – get 10,000 patriots to show up at Westboro’s next meeting…just keep shouting “God loves you” at them for an hour..and find some guys from Courage to lead the pack.

From the Star-Advertiser:

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka announced today that he will not run for re-election in 2012.

Akaka, 86, has served in the Senate since 1990. He previously served a little more than 13 years in the U.S. House of Representatives…

Former Gov. Linda Lingle (R-HI) has already been making moves to enter the race and, while facing an uphill fight, would certainly have given Akaka a run for the money. Its completely unknown at this moment whether or not Akaka’s retirement helps or hinders – Akaka is immensely popular in Hawaii and there doesn’t seem to be any Democrat out there with his stature. On the other hand, his advanced age would have been a handicap in a rough and tumble race.

The bottom line is that if Lingle does get in to the race, Democrats will have to fight hard and put a lot of resources in to keeping the seat, and that helps the national GOP. And, hey, Lingle has won two State-wide races before, and could do it again.

From Michael Barone:

…pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 58 percent of likely voters would rather have a government shutdown until both parties can agree on spending cuts, while only 33 percent would prefer spending at the same levels as last year.

Liberal poll critics may say, correctly, that the question frames the issue the way Republican politicians would like. But that’s the point. Republican politicians today have a much better chance to persuade voters to view issues the way they do than they did in the Clinton-Gingrich days.

All of which explains why Obama and congressional Democrats seem more willing to make concessions than Clinton was…

I don’t particularly like the two-week stop gap passed by the House yesterday. I hope it winds up being part of some grand, rope-a-dope strategy, but my attitude is that the swifter we have a shut down, the better…with the New Media in place, we can show that no one really misses the things which actually would stop in a shutdown. And if we don’t need them at that time, when do we ever really need them, at all? Its just more ammunition for our budget reform fight.

This story from Britain:

On Feb. 28, two British judges ruled that a Christian couple can no longer participate in the foster care of children, because of their conviction that a homosexual lifestyle is immoral.

Eunice and Owen Johns, aged 62 and 65, are Pentecostal Christians from the city of Derby and have cared for 15 foster children in the past. Following the ruling, Eunice Johns said she and her husband were “extremely distressed” at the ruling handed down in Nottingham Crown Court.

“All we wanted to do was to offer a loving home to a child in need,” Eunice Johns said…

But that doesn’t matter – what matters to liberal fascists is that the party line be adhered to. The party line is that homosexuality is morally good, and so children must be instructed to believe it. You are free to believe otherwise, but you are not free to transmit this view to anyone else. Sorta like the old days of Stalin’s Russia where a lady once observed that you can pray all you want, as long as only God can hear.

Later in the story it is noted that the court worries that the foster parents Christian views might “infect” the children, as if Christian morality is a disease; a blight upon society. The court has ruled that any practicing Christian who hold to genuine Christian morality is unfit to bring up children.

This is what our liberals want – a world straight jacketed in to their views. They are enforcing this around the world and want very much to enforce it here – and now that we’ve got a President who will, on one hand, enforce unconstitutional laws while, on the other, refuses to enforce laws he doesn’t like, how far away are we from this sort of tyranny?