The disaster just gets worse as more is known – from the AP:

Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation’s deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 290 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind…

You can donate at the Red Cross here; Catholic Charities here; please add any links to other charities you know in the comments. Time to come together, again, as a nation – our brothers and sisters are suffering.

May God receive those who have died, comfort those who have lost, strengthen those rushing to help. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Showing that bankster idiocy is truly bi-partisan – from Zero Hedge:

…”I wish Tim Geithner would say, when we reach the debt ceiling, we reach the debt ceiling, we are not going to do tricks down here…The Congress needs to be responsible and adult and take action on the deficit. The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of Al-Qaeda terrorists. Really. They’re really putting our whole society at risk by threatening to round up 50 percent of the members of the Congress, who are looney, who would put our credit at risk.”…

Shows the level of panic our banksters are reaching – they are scared spitless that we won’t raise the debt ceiling, thus calling a halt to their schemes to protect their wealth by picking the pockets of the middle class. That is all the money printing and the borrowing amounts to – Bernanke prints up money which devalues the money we, the people, hold. The newly printed money is handed off to the banks, who then use it to buy bonds – which we, the people, have to pay back with interest, using our rapidly devaluing dollars. To really nutshell it – banks are being given free money which they then loan to us. Great gig, if you can get it – but it only works as long as the United States keeps borrowing like no tomorrow.

Anyone out there still wonder why I want to abolish the Federal Reserve and pass a balanced budget amendment?

For the immediate future, this is just another good reason to really fight it out on the debt ceiling debate. Do not agree to raise it unless fundamental tax and spending reform is enacted. This is a fight we must have – and a fight we would win easily. All we have to do is show the courage to ignore scare tactics like this – accusing us of being terrorists because we don’t want to borrow more money! The statement is absurdly stupid…but they’re going to keep on trying, because they can’t actually debate us on the merits of the issue.

From Bloomberg:

Japan’s sovereign-rating outlook was cut to “negative” by Standard & Poor’s as the nation’s reconstruction needs following last month’s earthquake will likely add to what’s already the world’s biggest debt load.

The outlook on Japan’s local-currency debt rating, at AA-, the fourth-highest grade, was lowered from “stable,” S&P said in a statement today. The company had reduced the rating by one step in January in the first cut since 2002. Moody’s Investors Service said last month the disaster may bring forward the “tipping point” for the country’s bond market…

So much for the early, post-earthquake, “don’t worry, this will actually help” nonsense. Japan has been teetering on the edge of disaster for 20 years…kept limping along by pure, unadulterated Keynesianism which has now left Japan under a mountain of debt right when they suddenly need bags of money just to put things back the way they were. Here’s a news flash for all the financial experts out there: this will not be good for the Japanese and global economy. It will make things worse. As will rising oil and food prices. As will Chinese inflation. As will burgeoning US debt. All the good news you can scratch up out there amounts to nothing compared to the fundamental problems of the economy.

So, hang on to your hats – and your wallets – this is going to get rough.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

From NRO’s The Corner:

When Reince Priebus became chairman of the Republican National Committee in January, it was $24 million in debt and had only $350,000 in cash on hand. By the end of March, however, the debt had dropped to $19.8 million and the cash had grown to $3.2 million. Last quarter, in fact, the GOP raised $17.7 million in total.

“We had a good first quarter,” Priebus tells National Review Online, “because we spent a lot of time on the phones, rebuilding trust and reinvigorating our major-donor program, which I think needed some TLC. We’re providing that every single day here and building that network.”…

This is important as we head in to 2012 – the disarray at the RNC probably cost us half a dozen House and one or two Senate seats in 2010. While the RNC isn’t the wizard of political victory, having a national organization firmly on message and in strong financial position is key to national victory. We lost some good opportunities – hopefully, by the time 2012 dawns we’ll have a well-oiled RNC to coordinate all efforts.

My hat’s off to Priebus on this – he’s doing a good job and I pray for his continued success.

Did you hear what Whoopi Goldberg said on The View today?

“You know how Donald always says, ‘People are laughing at us, thinking we don’t have it’? “Here’s one of the reasons they’re laughing at us, Donald. When you show such insane disrespect to the president of your country, people in other countries think that we’re idiots. So I’m just pointing that out.”

So, I guess it was okay to show insane disrespect to George W. Bush when he was president? What a hypocrite.

From Politico:

Ralph Nader is convinced that Barack Obama will win reelection in 2012, but that won’t stop him from trying to organize a slate of Democrats in the coming months to challenge the president in party primaries next year.

Nader told POLITICO on Wednesday that he is working on bringing together about half a dozen presidential candidates who could “dramatically expand a robust discussion within the Democratic Party and among progressive voters across the country.” Each would focus on a specific issue where the far left says Obama hasn’t done enough, including the environment, labor and health care…

So, the Nader theory is that Obama has a mortal lock on being re-elected, so Progressives had better launch a primary challenge in order to get Obama back on the left wing straight and narrow? This is either Nader being monumentally dumb, or incredibly slick. Dumb if Nader is thinking that a more leftist Obama will be electable in 2012; smart if its a way to get leftists thinking of a primary challenge as a means of derailing Obama’s re-election effort, lest an Obama loss crush liberalism for a generation.

Hard to tell what it is with Nader – he’s such a bizarre mixture of honest and dishonest; elitist and populist; screwball and level headed that it is hard to tell which is coming through at the moment. I’ll take it that Nader, like a lot of hard core leftists, is upset at Obama’s course and wants to find a way to express it in the 2012 election. Whatever odd ball reason Nader – or any other leftist – comes up with for doing this is immaterial…what is important, for us, is the evidence it gives of trouble over in liberal land.

Five truths about Planned Parenthood. I’ll add a sixth – PP is a horrible, anti-human organization.

The intolerance of the left as displayed by advocates of same-sex marriage.

Inventer of the tele-prompter dies. Obama speechless.

The economy is in great shape!

Or, maybe not.

Terrorists had the BBC on speed dial?

So, downloading porn at the library is ok – at this point, is there any reason for us to have libraries?

From the AP:

Administration sources say President Barack Obama plans this week to name CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Gen. David Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan, would take the CIA chief’s job.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes are not final.

The changes would probably take effect this summer. Gates has already said he will leave this year…

At least Panetta is an adult, so the Defense Department will have some worthwhile leadership. Petraeus is a good choice for CIA, as well, if that works out to be correct. In the sorry list of potential Democrats, these would be the best picks possible for the posts. I can only figure that Gates, Panetta and Petraeus kinda worked it out amongst themselves and Obama is just signing off on it.

Nothing good, to be sure – from NRO’s The Corner:

…Cheragh Daily also alleges that local authorities were complicit in the jail break. “Even if digging the tunnel was not a scenario to free the terrorists from prison as concessions to [Taliban] leaders, we cannot rule out involvement of powerbrokers and influential hands in the incident.” Ridiculing Hamid Karzai’s conciliatory approach to the Taliban, the paper asks the president to explain whether the escapees were “foreign elements” or “dissatisfied brothers.” The paper warns that all escapees will “return to their trenches and continue to kill defenseless Afghan people and troops.” Afghan daily Hasht-e Sobh writes that the escape of Taliban fighters could “boost the morale of the Taliban and weaken the confidence of security forces.”

Daily Afghanistan says the Afghan government has lost credibility and is riddled with corruption and bribery. To mask its incompetence, the paper writes, the government resorts to “complicated and dangerous” policies, referring to the government’s “one-sided” reconciliation efforts with the Taliban. It alleges that the Taliban and foreign intelligence agencies have infiltrated the “senior ranks of the security apparatus.”…

It could be, of course, that Karzai is calculating the results of a US withdrawal – which is supposed to start this summer – and is simply covering his bases. Believing that if he goes easy on the Taliban, they’ll go easy on him when he’s no longer backed by direct US military aid. This would be a foolish hope on the part of Karzai or, indeed, any other Afghan leader. The Taliban are in it for the long haul and are playing for keeps. The best place for such captives – especially those rated most dangerous – is in Guantanamo Bay. But even though Obama won’t close it down (at least, not until after election day), he’s not willing to start filling it back up, again…another example of liberal fantasies wrecking any chance of rational policy.

Progress is being made in Afghanistan – you just don’t get to hear about it much because (a) the Obama Administration isn’t keen to talk about what is happening there and (b) the MSM no longer needs to keep a running tally of American dead because the President is no longer Republican. This is turning out to be a close run thing – can the military win this thing before Obama (and, now, the Afghan government) loses it? I hope our troops will pull it off – but I worry that even if we’re just an inch away from victory, Obama will pull the plug rather than risk the war going on in to the 2012 election campaign.

I mean, seriously; no rational person can argue in favor of our continued membership in this corrupt, moribund relic of the post-WWII era – from PJ Tatler:

Unless something intervenes to stop it, Syria is about to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. It’s not necessary to belabor the absurdity of such a development, or the moral vacuity of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s refusal to discourage Syria’s election: “It’s a matter for the states,” he says. American opposition is likely but, on this matter, we have no veto…

The Syrian government is currently massacring their own people – and the UN is going to put that very same government on the human rights panel. This is the same thing as putting the Mafia in charge of fighting organized crime. It just makes no sense – each and every nation which either votes in favor of or abstains from voting on this is morally bankrupt…and I mean right down to the core. You have to be a complete cretin to think that Syria should be on this council…but, there they go.

Get us out of the UN. Get us out today. Have nothing to do with it – anyone who is involved in the UN is morally degraded.